


Intersections

by Sigma



Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF, Irish Actor RPF
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-01-21 14:04:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 75,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1553054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sigma/pseuds/Sigma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ɪntəˈsɛkʃ(ə)n/<br/><i>noun</i><br/>plural noun: intersections<br/>1. a point at which two or more things intersect<br/>2. an act of intersecting (“his course is on a direct intersection with ours...”)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts), [Losille](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Losille/gifts).



> _This fic came about because a. I spend far too much of my salary going to the theatre in London, b. because I realised just how incestuous the theatre/acting world is in the UK in that *everyone* knows each other, and even I can play three degrees of Benedict Cumberbatch (voted one of the best connected men in the UK in GQ's 2014 awards) and c. because the awesome Losille and Sammydavisjuniorjr dragged me metaphorically kicking and screaming into RPF fic._  
> 
> _I am not worthy guys, but this one's for you.._  
> 
> _As always, I must state that I do not own anything......except perhaps for the original characters in this fic. The characters that are based on real people in this work of fiction are obviously not accurate portrayals of the individuals in question and a certain artistic licence has been taken as to the times and locations mentioned within when a project mentioned is one that exists in the real world. I also apologise to various talented actresses for shamelessly stealing their roles for my OFC._
> 
>  
> 
> _Oh -and this is a sloooow burn guys. Anyone hoping for quick PWP? Seek elsewhere...we'll get there eventually but not yet!_

**_Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh, Scotland – July 1998_ **

"She's going to be fine, Nick. The Doctors have said that there will be no visible scars and her leg, ribs and wrist should heal with no further complications. And," the speaker hesitated, "and they say she should still be able to have children, if she wants to, when she's older."

The other man's fist clenched where it was pressed against the glass, and his voice was low and full of a bitten back fury when he responded, deceptively mildly. "Oh, that's good." He was silent for a moment, and his companion breathed out in relief, hoping that he had avoided the worse of it. But then he continued. "Yes, that's good. Good that my twelve year old god-daughter, my best friend's child isn't going to have any _visible_ scars. That's great isn't it? That she might still be able to have children later, if she really wants to?" He pressed a flat hand to the glass separating him from the private room where the small figure lay, chopped off dark hair stark against the white pillow that was only a few shades lighter than her complexion, apart from where the pallor of her skin was defaced by cuts and the giant bruise taking up half of her small face.

"I don't suppose they care about the fact that she might never want to have children after this? Or have anyone male touch her ever again in her whole life? Or about the rest of her invisible scars? Or about the fact she's going to have to live with what happened to her for the rest.of.her.life? Do you think they care about that? Or that all of this could have been fucking avoided if they hadn't decided to interfere in something that was none of their fucking business? Do they think about that? Or how, if there is some kind of afterlife, I'm going to have to account to Alec about how I couldn't get custody of his and Anastasia's only child, after I promised them I would, and then _this_ happened?

He pressed his hand to the glass again and took a deep breath in through his nostrils, visibly fighting for calm. "I'm going to sue them, John. I'm going to raise a fucking inquiry if I have to. I'm going to make sure that that fucking animal that touched my girl never sees the light of day again, and then I'm going to have their fucking heads. All of them. Those social workers who contested the will, that judge who granted them custody, those individuals who decided that it would be _"better for her emotional welfare"_ if I wasn't allowed contact and if she was _"removed from the distress of familiar surroundings and allowed a fresh start."_ And especially those fuckwits in the placement department who had the genius idea to place a barely eleven year old traumatised orphan with a foster family, where the foster father turned out to have a juvenile record for child sexual abuse!!"

He breathed out again. "And when I am finished, none of them will ever be working in any field that involves child welfare again, I promise you that." He shook his head, leaning forward so that his forehead rested against the barrier of the safety glass. "But before that, I'm going to take her home. Take her back to where she should have been all this time, and I'm going to do my very best to help her recover from this as much as I can, for the rest of my life, if I have to." He turned to the other man in the corridor, who was watching him solemnly. "And it still won't be enough. I let them _down_ , John. I let Alec and Anas down. They asked me to do this one thing for them, and I was stupid enough to let other people persuade me that what they had asked me to do wasn't the best thing for their child. And now a twelve year old girl – my _godchild_ , has paid the price for my stupidity. So no," he shook his head. "Never again." He looked back at the small, slim figure lying so still amongst the white sheets, such a contrast to the constant motion he was used to from her and spoke softly to her through the glass, even though he knew she couldn't hear him. "We're going home, Kitten. And no one's ever going to hurt you again." He turned back to his friend and nodded curtly. 

"Right. There are things I need to do to get things in motion. Are you coming?" His friend nodded and they turned to go, but before they did so Nick paused at the nurses' station, somehow dredging up the ghost of a smile for the red haired nurse sitting there, as he leaned over to speak to her. Jean had been a godsend ever since his god-daughter had been brought onto the Paediatric intensive care ward three days ago. 

"Jean, I have to go and get some stuff done. I'll be back in around an hour. Can you keep an eye on her for me?"

Jean smiled gently at the exhausted looking man who had been haunting the ward constantly ever since their latest patient had been brought in three days ago. "Of course, Mr Johnson. She's pretty heavily drugged just now, and we don't expect to start bringing her out of it for some time. But I'll be here just in case."

"Thanks, Jean. I appreciate it."

"No problem, Mr Johnson. That wee girl has been through enough, already. I'll make sure nothing else touches her on my watch."

Nick flashed her a grateful, but somehow still melancholy smile, and then stalked off down the corridor, but not before casting another brief glance through the glass at the small, still figure in the private room. For a moment Jean saw a flash of mingled grief and fury pass over his face before he managed to conceal his expression behind a mask of haughty indifference and her mouth thinned in sympathy, both for him and more importantly for the object of his concern, that slender, brutalised figure lying so immobile in that hospital bed. 

Determining to check more closely on her patient's condition, she shifted out from behind her station and slipped quietly into the room where her patient slept, with tubes and leads monitoring her vitals, the reassuring steady sound of the heart monitor and the girl's soft breathing the only disturbance to the silence. Crossing to the bed she performed a brief physical check to back up the data the machines were providing, and reassured, brushed away a lock of dark hair from the girl's face, where it had fallen over one bruised cheek bone. Jean bet she was a lovely child when she was well, it was there for everyone to see in the delicacy of her bone structure and the underlying rose bud shape of her mouth, which was sadly swollen and torn at the moment. But after what had happened to her….Jean shook her head sorrowfully. She doubted this little one would ever want anyone to think she was worth looking at for a long time. She smoothed the girl's errant hair away from her face again. But she would recover eventually, Jean just knew it. She had been a nurse for a long time, and she had seen so much evidence of the terrible things that adults could do to children and each other, and over the years she had developed an unerring instinct for those who would curl up and give up, and those that would fight it out. And this one was a fighter. If she hadn't given up after twelve months of slowly escalating psychological and emotional terror and then thirty six hours of ceaseless physical and sexual abuse, she wouldn't be one to give up now she had a chance to live and thrive. She was going to make it. And Jean was going to help her, as much as she could.

Moved by some impulse, the nurse leaned down and brushed a brief kiss over the small patch of uninjured skin on her patient's forehead. "Sleep, lassie. Sleep, little fighter," she whispered in her soft Western Isles brogue. "Sleep and get well, Kat McPherson. And when you wake up, I'll be there. We're watching over you now, wee one. And no one's getting past us. So sleep, and dream good dreams."

She dimmed the lights and left the room, shutting the door behind her. And in the bed a girl called Kat McPherson slept peacefully, and dreamed of nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

_Late evening – late May 2012 – New Zealand_

There was a slap of cards down on the table and a triumphant *humph* of breath from the tall, slender man who had just revealed his hand to a medley of groans of disgust and various aspirations cast upon his parentage. He glanced around at the group and smirked, pulling the pile of matchsticks from the centre of the table back to his corner. "Mine, my precious…." he lisped in a soft, upper-class English accent, only to duck, grinning as he was abruptly pelted from all sides with bits of crisp and matchsticks and other debris, as well as the inevitable chorus of disapproval.

"None of that!!"

"No hobbit speak at the poker table."

"That's my line, you posh bastard…"

The table descended in chaos and laughter for a moment and Ben grinned unrepentantly back at the various amused faces fake chastising him, before he settled back into his chair and lordly waved his hand at Martin's grinning face…."Just deal the cards, Little Martin."

His friend shook his head at him resignedly. "Yes, Your Smaugship," and proceeded to attempt to corral the rest of their motley crew into some semblance of order.

Ben leaned back in the chair and glanced around, trying to memorise the feeling of this particular place and time and store it away for the future. 

He hadn't expected to get along so well over the last few weeks with the slightly ramshackle group that made up the principal cast and crew on The Hobbit trilogy, especially as he was such a latecomer and was only in town for a fortnight to do voice work. But, buoyed by Martin's enthusiastic introduction, the second "fellowship" had been unexpectedly welcoming and had conspicuously dragged him into their warm, metaphorically somewhat foetid embrace.

And it had been great to touch base again with Martin, and to catch up with a few others of the blokes that he knew peripherally from so many years of knocking around with London's TV and film community, such as Jimmy Nesbitt, as well as making some new acquaintances. He always thought that one of the delights of his profession was getting to meet so many interesting people and this job had been no exception. And the most fascinating of those new acquaintances was curled up in a most feline way in the chair next to his, green eyes sharp and quietly affectionate as she observed the room and the men who had become almost a second family to her over the last year and a bit.

He leaned forward to get her attention, careful not to move too closely into her personal space. She noted the move and tilted her head at him in silent question, a subtle reserve slipping into those expressive eyes as she did so.

"Ben?"

"Sorry to bother you, but Martin mentioned that you're heading home in the next few days?"

"Hhmm. Yes. I've got," she smiled slightly to herself. "Quite a few things I need to catch up on as soon as possible." She paused to take in the room for a minute, her expression distantly fond. "This whole thing has been a great experience, but I _have_ been away from home for over a year now, more or less and there are lots of things I need to sort out."

"Do you want a lift?"

"What?" She shifted in her seat to face him more fully, one eyebrow raised in confusion, clearly wondering if she had misheard. 

"I said - do you want a lift?" Faced with her doubtful expression he hastened to explain. "I have to be back on set in LA in three days unexpectedly to do pick ups on _Trek_ and it's urgent enough that the studio will be sending a plane." He smiled; amused by her suddenly blank face in response to this rather egotistical statement, which was more of a puncture to any potentially swelled head he might have developed than any verbal exhortation could have been. 

"Not my choice, they insisted. But it does mean I have space and I can get you to LAX for free. You can easily pick up a connection back to London there." He could tell by her hesitancy that she was considering it, but clearly had reservations so he played his trump card. "I've already offered some of the other guys a lift and Jimmy and Aidan have said they'll take me up on it."

Just as he had suspected, the mention of those two immediately relaxed her and she smiled a little. "Thank you, Ben. That's very kind. I already discussed going home with Aidan and Jimmy so anything that cuts any of the hassle out of the trip is much appreciated. Are you sure the studio won't mind?"

He shook his head. "They don't care as long as I'm back on set on Wednesday."

"Okay then. So Monday?"

He nodded. "Monday. Will it take you long to get packed up? You have been here for a while."

She shook her head briefly. "I sent the vast majority of my stuff home days ago. I've just got a few bags left." She glanced around again at the game table which had clearly degenerated into chat, the card game essentially abandoned, and pushed up from her chair. "But if we are flying out on Monday I'd better go and make some arrangements." She graced him with another slight smile and turned to go. "Thanks again."

He sat back and shrugged. "No problem. I get company on the flight and you three get home a little easier. It's a win-win situation and good karma for me."

She smiled a little at that and nodded a good bye, slipping around the crowd to come up behind Jimmy Nesbitt's seat, where she touched her cast mate's shoulder gently to get his attention. Ben watched lazily as Jimmy leaned back in his seat and the two of them had a brief conversation, before Nesbitt grinned at her and nodded. She smiled back at James, a real, brilliant, smile that lit up her face and made Ben's breath catch just a little, so unlike the cautious, reserved inclinations of the lips she had favoured him with so far. And then with another brief touch on Nesbitt's shoulder she slipped away, no doubt heading home for the night.

Benedict had to admit it – he was fascinated. 

He prided himself on being an excellent observer of people but Katerina Alexandra McPherson, who in her role as the elf Tauriel played the only female member of the extended "fellowship", was an enigma wrapped in a mystery. 

He knew who she was, obviously, even before he had met her in person. The combination of brains and beauty and a remarkable level of talent was not that common a one, even in the hot house that was the British performing arts world. And she had been fairly high profile ever since she had been at Oxford and had blasted her way through the Oxford University Dramatic Society, even though there had been a period of a few years where she didn't seem to be involved in anything other than on the production side. But then she had turned up at Central School of Music and Drama and had seemingly effortlessly forged a subsequent career in TV, theatre and independent film, setting up a production company with a few friends which had unusually beaten the odds and made a film that was both critically well reviewed and financially modestly profitable. So far, so admirable. But none of this was particularly surprising. 

It was the woman herself that was. 

Ben prided himself on the extensive network of friends and contacts he had built up in his decade or so of years working in the industry. He was a sociable man who enjoyed the company of other creatives, and he was fairly high profile as well. But until this job he had never once had the opportunity to meet Ms McPherson and that in itself was pretty unusual for two, comparatively high profile, working actors who both moved within the incestuous mishmash that was the UK acting community. But _that_ was the issue, she didn't seem to socialise within the community at all. Or if she did, she was very quiet about it. She only seemed to do the minimum necessary appearances at the more high profile events, such as the various award shows, and her contracted publicity for whatever project she was attached to. And he had never seen any evidence of her cooperating with the few profiles he had seen of her that related to her personal life, of which very little was public knowledge. In an internet age she had somehow managed a semi-impossible juggle, to be both high profile in relation to her work, and extraordinary private otherwise. 

It was impressive, but Ben couldn't help but think there was something else involved in her maintenance of her privacy. He knew a lot of very beautiful women; it was unfortunately almost a requirement these days for an actress to be a cut above the aesthetic norm, and the vast majority of those he knew were comfortable with their attractiveness, wielded it to greater or lesser degrees in both their personal and professional life, and, in line with the relaxed nature of their industry, were free with their personal interaction, doling out and receiving gently flirtatious physical contact and banter as a given. But it had been evident from even before he had met her, from Martin's brief, but pointed warning, "Leave Kat alone, Ben. Don't try to flirt with her and don't fucking touch her," that McPherson was different. 

There was almost perceptible bubble of personal space around her, a stillness and reserve in her body language and the cool courtesy of her language that discouraged casual intimacy. He would have thought that she was just a cold fish; some people were, if he hadn't seen the transformation in her when she was around people she had obviously come to trust, such as the cast and the crew on this New Zealand odyssey. There she was warm and relaxed, a soft smile hovering over full lips that sometimes broke into a delightful urchin, dazzling grin which accompanied a low, surprisingly dirty chuckle, green eyes glittering. And she was clearly very well liked amongst Jackson's extended gypsy tribe, trading fiercely quick witted and blackly funny banter with actors and grips, equally popular with both cast and crew. Although, even then, Ben noticed that everyone almost sub-consciously avoided trying to touch her, leaving her little bubble of personal space intact unless it was absolutely necessary to make physical contact and clearly telegraphing their approach when it was. 

It was an anomaly, and Ben had always had the kind of mind that couldn’t help but focus in on those sorts of details and want to dig into the reasons behind them. Well, he considered, he would have almost twelve hours tomorrow during the flight to try and work out what made her tick. Keeping that in mind, he turned his attention back to the poker game, which was starting to pull together again. Yes indeed, he mused even as he drew his cards from the pristine pack being dealt by Richard, Kat McPherson was an enigma wrapped in an anomaly and he was very much looking forward to attempting to solve _that_ puzzle. He did not doubt that it would be one of almost Sherlockian proportions. 

************************************************************  
It was 10am Kiwi time when the plane took off and for the first few hours Ben forced himself to get some sleep, despite his inclinations to the contrary. He was going to have to go pretty much directly from the airport to the set, with only the briefest stop at the house he rented on a semi-permanent basis for when he was in LA, which was currently being borrowed by another UK based mate who was staying there while he was filming. Accordingly, he would have to hit the ground running and turning up on set knackered would be completely unprofessional. So after a brief review of the scenes he would be filming he knocked back a mild herbal sleeping pill, wrapped himself in a blanket on one of the couches in the back cabin, slipped on his sunglasses and crashed out to the strains of Debussy's _Clair de Lune_ in his headphones. 

When he woke up again he was gratified to see that a perfectly respectable five hours had passed. His ever demanding stomach was making itself known and he sleepily made his way to the galley where the obliging steward fixed him a light meal to take back to his seat. Instead he made his way to where McPherson was curled up on one of the couches set across from the larger table in the main cabin, alternating between reading her book and staring out of the porthole, her expression pensive and inscrutable. 

“Do you mind if I join you?”

She looked up at the interruption, smiled briefly in acknowledgement and watched without comment as he folded his lanky frame into the seat opposite hers and then went back to her book. He busied himself with his meal and the latest copy of _Variety_ and when he finished a few minutes later the ever efficient steward bustled over to take his plate, enquiring in a low voice if Sir wanted anything to drink. 

“Coffee would be lovely. Just black please, no sugar. Kat, would you like a drink?”

She pulled her attention back from where ever she was and glanced over at him, still faintly detached. 

“Oh -some orange juice would be lovely, thank you.”

With a nod the steward slipped away and re-appeared silently a few minutes later, delivering their order with a certain élan before he just as discretely disappeared back to the Galley. It was like wizardry and Ben watched his departing back with a certain professional admiration before he turned his attention back to his companion as he scanned the rest of the cabin to see if he could locate the other two members of the passenger manifest.

“Where's Jimmy and Aidan?”

Kat smiled slightly at the mention of her cast mates and inclined her head to the front of the plane. “They're crashed out a few rows forward and they haven't surfaced yet. I think last night's partying rather did them in.” The corners of her lips twitched in affectionate mockery. Ben raised an amused eyebrow in response.

“But not you?”

She shook her head. “No, not me. I made my exit at a sensible time before it all went a little mad. And also, I don't drink, so I'm considerably less likely to suffer from a hangover.”

Ben's other eyebrow rose to join its mate at that announcement. “Not at all?”

She shook her head, her expression tolerantly amused by his disbelief. It was clear that she had heard it all before.

“No. And yes- I am aware that a teetotal Scot is a statistical aberration,” she shrugged. “But there you are.”

“And a teetotal British actor is even _more_ unusual. How does that work out for you?” 

She smiled slightly at his mild disbelief. “Not as badly as you might think. I don't tend to hang around in industry circles unless it's for work, and all my old friends are aware that I don't drink so it's not an issue.”

“Don't you miss it?” he enquired, honestly curious. He couldn't imagine getting through the hectic social whirl he operated in without some kind of alcoholic encouragement. She shook her head.

“I've never had it, so there's nothing for me to miss.”

“So, you've never drunk at all?”

She looked amused by his persistence. “Apart from one instance when I got paralytically slaughtered when I was 17, no. And that was enough for me to decide that alcohol and I were better off as casual acquaintances.”

Ben shuddered exaggeratedly at the idea of a world without whisky. “I have to admit, and please don't think that this makes me some form of chronic alcoholic, but half of the events I go to would be unbearable without some form of booze related social lubricant.”

She inclined her head in agreement. “I know. And I appreciate just how tedious those sorts of evenings can be. Which is why I try and avoid them as much as possible, unless I'm actually contractually obligated to be there.”

He eyed her appraisingly. “That at least explains why we've never met before. If you avoid industry events, and I don't think we have that many friends in common, our paths wouldn’t have crossed unless we worked together. And I've not had that pleasure yet.” 

"And I _have_ been out the country for work for the majority of the last few years and I did mostly theatre before that."

Ben frowned at her, trying to recall where he knew her from. Then it hit him. "That's it! You did _Richard_ with Eddie!" he exclaimed. "Eddie Redmayne. He's a mate of mine," he hastened to explain at her faintly askance look at his outburst.

"Yes, I did. But I didn't know that you two knew each other."

He shrugged. "It's a small world, London theatre. And unless you are actively trying to avoid people..." he raised a speaking eyebrow at her and she raised one back, ( _'touché'_ ), "you tend to bump into the same people over and over again." He leaned back in his seat and stretched his long legs out in front of him, regarding her with renewed interest and taking a sip of his coffee as he did so.

"I remember Eddie raving about you at the time. He said that you were brilliant." He smirked at her. "And very, very pretty as well," he commented slyly. "I think that he felt that he made a bit of a fool of himself by hitting on you."

There had been a hint of heightened colour in the pale face across from him at the professional compliment but at the reference to her looks her flush abruptly fled and a subtle veil came down over those mobile features, leaving them a mask of composure.

"He didn't," she commented coolly. "And I'm sure you're mistaken. He was never anything less than a gentleman."

Ben inwardly snorted. He'd been the one who had had to listen to his friend's maudlin musings on how he could get his female lead to go out with him at the time, so he was sure he knew better what Eddie's feelings had been than the unwitting object of them. He opened his mouth to correct her and then caught sight of the cool wariness in those green eyes and shut his lips tightly together instead. She clearly did not want to know, and despite his somewhat deserved reputation for brutal honesty he instinctively felt that this would not be an advisable route to travel down if he wanted to get to know her better. So he nodded non-committally instead and changed the subject. 

"He mentioned that you took the Evening Standard Award for Best Newcomer for Annabella in _'Tis a Pity She's a Whore_ back in 2010."

She nodded and animation slipped back into her face now that they were back onto the safe territory of work, the majority of her cool reserve falling away again, but Ben could see that hint of wariness still lurking in her eyes, just waiting for him to say the wrong thing. He would have to be careful not to put his foot in it again.

"Yes. But," she demurred. "It was a quiet year, and they had to award it to _someone_. I'm sure in the normal run of things someone else would have had it."

He barked a laugh, surprised by the instant self depreciation and looked searchingly at her, not sure if she was serious. But she gazed back at him calmly and he realised with a pang of astonishment that she really meant it. So that at least established for him what camp of actor she fell into, clearly one of the ones who genuinely believed that their next job was going to be their last, as opposed to those (like himself) who charged ahead clad in an iron cloak of self belief. 

He smiled gently at her. "I'm sure that's not the case. You'll have to get better at taking compliments, Ms McPherson, if you're going to be hanging around this business for the long haul."

She met his gaze for a moment, searching for any hint of condescension but only seeing sincerity and then blushed, glancing down and away, feeling put on the spot and a little resentful. What did he _want_ from her? 

Ben took another sip of coffee his head tiled to one side, watching her carefully. She was _so interesting_. Such a mix of sparky intelligence and wit, combined with that show stopping combo of a gorgeous face and that stunning body. He could see why Eddie had been so fascinated. But she was also prickly and guarded and almost anti-socially reserved and if this was how she reacted at being grilled by just one person he could imagine how uncomfortable (especially since she was always sober) she must find big social events, with all the attendant avoidance of being pawed at by drunk would-be-paramours that such a beautiful woman must have to deal with as a matter of course.

"So," he continued, determined to lighten the mood. "You never got round to telling me what was next on your schedule."

Her lips twitched. "Now this marathon's done you mean?"

Ben smiled. "Absolutely."

She shifted in her seat, considering. "Well, Peter has first call on my time in case of re-shoots. But thankfully, I don't have to do any publicity for the first film, as I'm not in it."

"So, you're taking some time off?"

She cocked her head, warily amused by his persistence. "A little bit. But I have a Russian and English language biopic of Catherine the Great that starts production in September which is scheduled to go onto until Christmas."

He raised a startled eyebrow at that. "You speak Russian? Fluently?"

Her mouth quirked at the unflattering level of surprise inherent in his response. "Da…." she drawled, sardonically, her soft Scottish accent suddenly flattering and becoming considerably more guttural.

"I didn't know that." 

Her mouth twitched at the almost offended tone in his voice, but she responded mildly. "There was no reason that you should."

"And for the rest of 2013?"

"Why are you so interested?"

"Indulge me," he deflected without pausing, widening his eyes innocently in response to the searching look he was suddenly being subjected to from narrowed, increasingly suspicious green eyes. 

"I've got a BBC drama coming up in the early part of the year and then a big voice over gig for one of the WW1 commemorative series coming that the Beeb are making for the First World War anniversary in 2014. Then the publicity for _The Desolation of Smaug_ , and Dominic at the Globe has been in touch – they're meant to be starting construction of their new indoor theatre in the spring next year and he wanted to know whether I might be interested in doing something during the inaugural season over the winter of 2013/14. And there are some other things I'm to be involved in which I can't talk about yet."

"So you'll be kicking around in London then for a while over the next year?"

Her eyes narrowed still further, her body language shifting from relaxation to wariness before she answered. "Somewhat." Her voice had shifted, the warmth of her accent cooling as her defences automatically rose at the perceived intrusion, and Benedict cursed his instinct to push, which in this case had clearly been misjudged. She curled back further into her chair, knees pulled to her chest in subconscious protection, clearly withdrawn and he mentally slapped himself even as he cast around for a conversational topic that would lighten the mood.

Thankfully, their brief conversational stand off was broken by the appearance of the lurching forms of Jimmy Nesbitt and Aidan Turner who stumbled zombie like from the front cabin and proceeded to collapse on to the couch at Kat's side and the third chair at the table respectively.

"Where the foock are we?" Aidan whined, his Irish accent stronger than usual with just-woken-up grumpiness, as he craned to see through the window across the table, his eyes half slitted against the light streaming through the reinforced glass, wincing as he did so.

"Somewhere over the Pacific. Just as we have been for the last five hours." Kat grinned at him mock sympathetically, all too familiar with grumpy Turner from months of being in the make up trailer with him at god awful times of the morning, but glad of the intrusion to break up the conversational stale mate between her and Ben.

He groaned. "Really? Still?"

Ben laughed and she chuckled softly at the despair in her co-star's voice. "Yes, really. You've only been asleep for five hours, Aid. We've got another six or so to go."

"Gah." He leaned forward on to the table top and buried his head into his folded arms. She smirked at the top of his head. "Feeling a little hung over, are we?"

Aidan muttered something that sounded like _"Imneverdrinkinagain…._ " without lifting his head from the sanctuary of his arms and the other three around the table sniggered, Jimmy a little less gently than the others. 

"Ach. The youth of today, I tell you. No stamina," he proclaimed smugly, leaning back in his chair. "I can tell you, when I was that age I could have been out all night carousing, grabbed half an hours kip and been back on set, fresh as a daisy." He ignored the dubious looks his two cast mates gave him at that pronouncement. "But instead, just a few hours of decent drinking and here he is, hung over to the eyeballs and sick as a dog." He shook his head mockingly at Aiden's crumpled form. "The blood of the Irish is clearly thinning with every generation." 

There was a muffled noise that sounded vaguely like _"Fookoffyeroldbs'trd,_ " from the table and Kat valiantly bit back a laugh. Ben didn't bother with any such diplomacy and outright guffawed, while Jimmy just grinned, triumphant.

"Such language, and to your elders too, my boy. I am shocked, shocked I tell you." Aidan groaned pitifully again and Kat took pity on him and reached out in a rare physical concession to poke a remonstrative finger in Jimmy's ribs. 

"There now. Don't be a bastard to your poor dwarfish cousin and go and get him some coffee." Jimmy mockingly narrowed his eyes at her order but at a moment's pause gave in and hauled himself up from the couch to mooch away in the direction of the galley and a supply of the life giving elixir. With him gone, Kat studied the recumbent form of her friend with more overt sympathy. 

"How you doing really, Aid? You okay?"

He lifted his head slightly from his arms and turned it to one side so he could look up at her with one bloodshot brown eye. "I'm fine," he muttered. "Just hung over. The pain in the arse has the right of it. Got any drugs?" The last was accompanied by a plaintive eye roll and with a definite tone of self pity. Kat bit back a chuckle, even as she dug into her shoulder bag beneath the couch and pulled out a 32 tablet pack of ibuprofen. Ben raised an eyebrow at the size of the packet but Aiden just made eager grabbing motions with one hand, waiting impatiently as she popped two of the pills into his open palm and then dry-swallowing them down immediately, much to Ben's faint horror.

She caught his look at the size of the packet of drugs in her hand and smiled wryly, waving them around in explanation. "Somehow, and do not ask me how - and if it is because I was the only girl, I'll kill the lot of them someday, see if I don't - I spent most of the last year being a mobile first aid station and pharmacy for most of the Fellowship."

Aidan piped up from his head down position on the table. "Kat's always prepared that way. Very useful, 'cause we're all hopeless. She's the Doc."

She rolled her eyes at the slightly muffled Irish accented sobriquet but the look she gave Turner's bent head was wryly affectionate. "That's what they all ended up calling me. And it's not as if Peter didn't have plenty of perfectly adequately trained medical staff on set."

"True," Turner interjected. "But none of them were half way up a mountain with us when Richard would get one of his headaches." He turned to face the other way so the other bloodshot eye could bring Ben into focus. "She was a lifesaver, she was."

Kat shrugged. “There's only so often you can watch six foot plus of man trying to be stoic and not to admit how much pain he's in before you start carrying drugs with you in pure emotional self defence.”

“And Armitage is a right grumpy bastard when he has one of his headaches.” Aidan commented dryly.

“No, he's not!” Kat immediately jumped to defend her friend. Aidan just raised his head far enough from his folded arms to fix her with a sardonic look.

“Yes, he is. He just never was to _you_.”

Kat sighed and fixed Aidan with a remonstrating glare which he promptly ignored as he glanced over at Ben again, who was watching the repartee in fascination. “As far as our Armitage King was concerned, our elf girl here walked on water.”

Kat frowned at him, a hint of colour flagging up on her cheekbones at the assertion. “That's not fair, Aid,” she remonstrated sharply. “He didn't treat me any different from any of the others in the Fellowship.” Aidan rolled his eyes in disbelief at the naivety of that statement.

“'Course he did! He thought you were the best thing since sliced bread. You were practically his little sister. 'Course he wasn't going to be grumpy to you. He just kept it for the rest of us smelly bastards instead. Which,” Aidan considered. “Might have been fair enough, because we were a lot more annoying than you ever were. Plus you did always carry the spare chocolate and the drugs, so it made sense not to piss you off too mightily.”

He grinned faintly up at the frustrated disagreement in Kat's expression and then dumped his head back on his folded arms, the effort of the brief argument having exhausted his fragile post bender reserves.

Thankfully, before Kat could draw breath to continue the discussion Jimmy ambled back into view, carrying two giant mugs of black coffee, one of which he carefully transferred into the paws of his fellow dwarf who was making 'gimme, gimme' grabbing motions with his hands. 

“There you go, lad. And I've asked the steward if he wouldn't mind making us some bacon sandwiches. That should help with your hangover.”

Aidan guzzled down half the mug of boiling hot coffee without coming up for breath, leaving Ben wondering if the younger man had an oesophagus made of Teflon. When he did surface he immediately fixed Nesbitt with a grateful look.

“I take it all back, you black haired Protestant bastard. You are clearly a prince among men.”

An hour later Aidan had perked up considerably aided by two giant bacon sarnies to soak up the excess alcohol and numerous cups of coffee, and was regaling Ben with stories of the many ridiculous adventures the Fellowship had survived both on and off camera while they filmed their epic. Ben alternated between being appalled and falling about with laughter, while Jimmy added his own perspective. Kat watched the byplay with an amused smile lurking around her lips, occasionally interjecting with an anecdote of her own, or a correction when one of Aidan's 'recollections' drifted too far off into the fantastical. After half an hour or so of this Ben had to excuse himself to use the facilities and on the way back to the table he noticed a guitar case stacked in the pile of carry on luggage strapped against the bulwark of the back cabin. He hadn't realised that Nesbitt or Turner played.

“Whose guitar, lads? I thought you were over your rock star phase, Jimmy?” he teased, nudging the older man in the back as he went back to his seat.

“Fuck off Cumberbatch,” Jimmy groused good-naturedly. “For your information, a man is never _truly_ over his rock star phase, not if he has any kind of soul. But in this case, it's not my guitar. It's Kat's.” 

Benedict raised a surprised eyebrow at that and Kat regarded him with a sort of resigned amusement. 

“You play?” Even as he said it he realised it was a stupid statement, as was clearly denoted from the eye rolls he received from the other two men at the table as soon as he opened his mouth.

“No, she just carries a guitar around as a great big honking table decoration.” The sarcastic note in his voice combined with the expression on Nesbitt's face clearly telegraphed his current low opinion of Ben's intellectual capacity.

“Jimmy.”

The gentle remonstration in Kat's voice stopped James before he could lay into Ben any further. After a speaking eyebrow raise Jimmy waved a hand in acknowledgement, letting it slide, although the eye roll he gave Ben made it clear that this lapse in Ben's mental faculties would not be forgotten. 

She continued as if Nesbitt hadn't interrupted. “Yes, I play. But not professionally. I'm just an amateur.”

Now it was Kat that was the subject of askance looks from both her male cast mates. “Don't let her fool you, Cumberbatch,” Aidan protested. “She's bloody good. Could easily go professional if she wanted, and make good money doing so.”

“Really?” Ben was impressed and his tone made that clear. “What kind of stuff do you play?” 

Kat sighed inwardly before she answered. He was just so _nosy_ , and she'd hoped she would be able to get through the plane ride while only providing him with the minimum necessary modicum of information. Instead her cast-mates' well meaning chatter was unintentionally gifting him with _far_ too many insights.

“I trained in classical guitar and piano, but these days I tend to stick to a more general repertoire, blues, soul, contemporary and folk, anything that takes my fancy really.”

Jimmy chimed in. “And she sings too. Voice like an angel.”

Now it was Kat's turn to eye roll him. “That's a gross exaggeration, Nesbitt. You know fine well my singing voice is nothing to write home about.”

James looked singularly unimpressed by this depreciation and opened his mouth, presumably to correct her, but he was stopped before he could get started by an admonishing pointed finger, held up in front of his mouth. She looked over at the other Fellowship member. “Aidan, tell Ben the truth about my mediocre singing ability before he gets any wrong ideas.”

Aidan leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “'Fraid I can't do that, darling.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “And why not, Mr Turner?”

“Because it wouldn't be true, would it Ms McPherson?” Aidan turned to Ben, who was watching in mild amusement, confused as to why Kat wouldn't be willing to own her accomplishments. “She's actually very good. Like with the instruments, she could sing professionally if she wanted to.”

“Which _she doesn't_.” Kat interrupted sharply.

“Why not?” Ben enquired, honestly curious. 

She didn't answer for a moment, but when she saw from his expression that he had no intention of letting the subject go, she sighed and provided the simplest explanation that she could.

“I don't like performing like that for strangers. The acting, that's how I make my living and the audience, is who you do it for, but the music...the music's just for me-and those I choose to share it with.” 

Ben considered that for a moment and then nodded his understanding. “Fair enough. But you played for this lot?” He waved a hand at Jimmy and Aidan.

“Oh aye,” Aidan responded brightly. “Quite frequently too. Once we realised she could play we hounded her unmercifully until she gave in. She was our fall back entertainment for birthdays and location shoots in the middle of the New Zealand mountains.” 

“True,” chimed in Jimmy. “You haven't lived until you've had a camp fire sing-along with Peter Jackson, assorted dwarves and techies in the middle of the Kiwi wilderness.”

Ben smothered a laugh. “That sounds delightful,” he observed mock-solemnly. Surprisingly, it was Kat who laughed and rushed to the Fellowship's defence. 

“It was! Honestly! It was lovely.” Her voice bubbled with recollection and enthusiasm and her two cast mates smiled at her genuine pleasure at the memory. 

“Aye, joking apart, it was really nice. There were some beautiful nights.” Jimmy recalled, almost wistfully.

“And the stars!” Aidan interjected. “So many focking thousands of stars....” He nodded to Ben. “No light pollution, you see. It was amazing.”

Kat smiled at the two of them affectionately. “And despite their protestations, some of the lads had pretty good singing voices. And Peter can hold a tune surprisingly well.”

Stuck by inspiration, Ben glanced between the three of them. “I don't suppose there's any chance you'd want to play now....? We've certainly got the time.”

His heart sank as a little of the animation disappeared from her expression as that damnable reserve slipped back into place, but before she could take a breath to demure Jimmy had nudged her in the ribs and startled her out of what ever she was about to say.

“That sounds like a grand idea! What'd you say, girlie? It might be the last time you get to experience the privilege of playing for us...”

“A privilege I can live without, I'm sure.” Her tone was distinctly dry and slightly mocking but Jimmy cheerfully ignored her unspoken objections and heaved himself up from the couch to go and retrieve her guitar while Aidan gave her the full force of his puppy eyes. She was a tough woman, but even she wasn't immune to that when she wasn't all that invested in the outcome and after a few moments she caved.

“Oh – all right then!” Aidan grinned smugly at her and she shook her head at him, amused despite herself. Before she could change her mind Jimmy had deposited the guitar case in her lap and the three men watched as she carefully extracted her guitar, tightening the strings that she had loosened for shipping purposes and using the tuning fork in the case to test for any changes in pitch that might have occurred during transportation. Once she was finished she paused for a second to shake her hands out, flexing her fingers to warm them up. Only when she was satisfied did she put her hands to the instrument, contenting herself initially with increasingly complex sequences of scales and chord changes until her fingers had remembered the way of it and she felt suitably comfortable again with the feel of the strings and the wood under her hands. She fell into a complex little chord progression, fingers dancing merrily over the strings as her confidence returned, the mellow notes echoing around the cabin.

“Right, lads, this was your idea. So suggestions, please?”

“Och, I don't know, girlie. You choose.”

“Yeah, Kat,” Aidan agreed. “Ladies choice.”

She raised an enquiring eyebrow at the third member of their party and he shook his head at her. “Far be it for me to go against the majority vote! We await your pleasure.”

She sighed mock-exaggeratedly at their singular inability to make any form of decision, thought for a moment, smiled briefly and then her fingers started to pick out a melody infinitely familiar to anyone who had any exposure to British music during the 1990s.

_“Today is gonna be the day that they're gonna throw it back to you....._  
 _By now you shoulda, somehow, realized what you gotta do,_  
 _I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now...”_

Jimmy barked a laugh and then grinned, taking her choice of song as a homage to his inner rock star tendencies as she had intended and Ben found himself smiling as well as he leant back in his chair to listen. Aidan was right – she did have a lovely voice, sweet and low for a woman but with a joyous lilt that drew you in. And she was completely unselfconscious as she sang, clearly not caring about anything but the music. Aidan was watching her as she played, a soft, contemplative look on his face and once she hit the second verse he joined in, his voice harmonising surprisingly well with hers, probably a side benefit of all those sing-alongs they had mentioned. Jimmy waited until the next verse before he joined them, winning a smile from Kat as his deep gravelly tones joined the chorus. Ben held off until the penultimate verse before he ventured to open his mouth, not sure if he wanted to risk the potential humiliation as singing had never been one of his strengths. But as always, he was over thinking it, and when their guitarist effortlessly segued in to _Brown Eyed Girl_ by Van Morrison he found himself singing along enthusiastically. 

It was a good fifty minutes or so before they slowed down to allow Kat to rest her fingers a little and even then she kept playing quietly, although she had now slipped into Celtic folk from contemporary. Jimmy had pulled himself up to go and source some snacks from the steward and Ben didn't recognise the song that she was playing and so was content just to watch, rather than attempt to sing along. However Aidan clearly was familiar with it and the two of them were singing softly, almost intimately together...

_“Raised on songs and stories, heroes of renown,_  
 _The passing tales and glories, that once was Dublin town,_  
 _The hallowed halls and houses, the haunting children's rhymes,_  
 _That once was Dublin city, in the Rare Oul Times...”_

She wasn't watching Turner as she sang, too focused on picking out the tune and weaving her voice in and out of the notes, but Ben was and the hopeless, faintly melancholy look on the other man's face as he watched his cast mate felt like something too private for Ben to witness so he slipped from his chair as quietly as he could. Neither of them seemed to notice, too caught up in the music and the musician respectively and Ben was able to make his way to the galley to join Jimmy without causing any further disruption.

The other man gave him a keen look as he came up beside him. “Not so familiar with the old Irish folk songs, Cumberbatch?”

Ben shook his head. “It seems not,” he agreed. He hesitated for a moment, unsure whether to say anything but his natural curiosity (his mother would have said incessant nosiness) won that brief battle. Plus, Jimmy was waiting for him to speak with an air of thinly disguised impatience.

“Aidan and Kat – are they involved?”

Jimmy barked a quiet laugh, not having expected that question. He shook his head briskly. “God no. Not that Turner wouldn't be doing cartwheels if that was the case!” He shook his head again. “But no. Definitely not. Why did you think they are?”

Ben bit his lip as he contemplated his answer. “Just the way he acts around her. And the way he was looking at her just there when they were singing.”

Something in Jimmy's face softened and his normally upturned lips thinned for a second in sympathy with his younger cast mate as a brief expression of what looked like regret flashed across his face. 

“No. No. They never have been, and Aidan's too sensible a lad to smash himself against _that_ rock-face. But a year and a bit of filming with someone in all weathers makes you either pretty close to someone, or makes you hate their guts, and let's just say that Aidan has no designs on Kat's intestines.”

“So they're close?”

Jimmy shrugged. “As close as she'll let anyone anyway. And I know that if she had given him the slightest element of encouragement, or even any indication that she even noticed him like that, he would have been performing grand romantic gestures for her at the drop of a hat. But she didn't and Aidan, like the rest of us, saw what happened the one time someone tried to push the issue with Kat, and none of us wanted to risk that happening again. Thankfully, Aidan worked that one out himself before we had to point it out to him.”

Ben frowned, confused. “What do you mean, 'as close as she'll let anyone?' And what happened the other time anyway?”

Jimmy gave him a long considering look before he answered. "Kat is…." he paused, choosing his words carefully. "Kat is not a woman who gives herself, either her attention or her affection easily. And when I say _easily_ I mean it takes either a blasting ram or a considerable period of time before she's generally willing to extend either."

"But she has with you lot?"

Jimmy grabbed the mug the steward was extending eagerly as he nodded, thanking the man absently as he did. He took a sip. Caffeine. Blessed of the gods. 

"Oh aye. I think I would be accurate in making that assertion," he continued cheerfully. "But you have to remember, Cumberbatch, that we _have_ been stuck together in quite intense circumstances for over a year, mostly in the middle of nowhere with no one to talk to but each other. And even the most reticent of individuals would have problems maintaining his or her reserve in those circumstances. But otherwise, I'm not sure how well any of us would have got to know her at all. And that would have been a right pity for all parties."

"Why? What's she like?"

Jimmy leaned against the wall, briefly contemplative as he listened to the quiet notes from the guitar that drifted through the partly closed door into the enclosed area of the galley. His eyes were affectionate as he considered the complexity that was the lone female member of the Fellowship.

"Very bright. Extremely so, in fact. Ferocious catholic intellect on that girl really. _Extremely_ well educated, but consistently down plays it. Funny as all hell, once she gets going. Very black sense of humour," he noted approvingly. "Bloody good actress and one of those irritatingly multi-talented individuals who seem to be able to turn their hand to most things. Practical. Pragmatic. Strangely at home in the mountains for a girl who looks like she should be strutting a catwalk in Milan. And she'd never explain that one either, despite how much we all pestered her."

"But, personality wise?"

Jimmy smiled. "Oh, she's lovely. Sweet as sugar once you get past most of that iron reserve. The issue is, of course, is that most people never do. And she's not one to make it easy for them."

Ben considered this with a frown. As a naturally sociable person he found the idea that anyone wouldn’t want to make new connections rather strange, and especially in their profession which relied so much on who you knew.

"Why is that, do you think?"

Jimmy shook his head. "No idea. Don't think that’s not a question that we've considered, but it's not one you're ever likely to get any kind of straight answer too. I just know that she's not one to make acquaintances easily and if you want to get to know her you'll have to accept the fact that it'll be both on her terms and that you'll have to do all the running. And that'll take time. So that's my advice to you, Cumberbatch, if you want to add McPherson to your roster of friends, you'll need to invest both time and patience and use all of your considerable persuasive powers as well, I don't doubt."

"But it’s worth it?"

Jimmy nodded certainly, "Absolutely. Under all that sass and fierceness is a lovely, lovely girl that I'm delighted to consider a mate of mine." He held up a remonstrative finger at Ben's considering look. "And on that note, I'll just give you a warning. Kat's got a lot of people in her corner, even if she's not aware of it. And the last thing any of us want is for her to be upset. So learn from our experience and make sure that your intentions remain platonic. Otherwise you're just headed for a car wreck, and she'll be out of sorts for days."

Ben scowled, stung by Nesbitt's assumption that any romantic overture he might make in McPherson's direction would be doomed to fail. "What do you mean by that?"

Jimmy gave him an old fashioned look. "Look, you're a single bloke, right?" At Ben's reluctant nod of confirmation he continued. "And Kat is a beautiful, accomplished, intelligent, witty, single young woman, plus she's got that reserve, which makes a lot of us competitive blokes desperate to be the one that breaks through and win the prize. Am I right?"

Ben shifted uneasily under Nesbitt's probing stare, unwilling to admit that he was probably right out loud but inwardly agreeing with the majority of his assertions. McPherson was all those things, plus as Jimmy had pointed out, that irresistible thing to a man like him –a challenge. 

"You know I'm right, Cumberbatch. But what you, and all of the other blokes that fall over her without her even noticing, is that it's never going to happen." Jimmy caught the bewildered expression on Ben's face and took pity on him. "She just doesn't seem to _see_ men like that."

"You mean she bats for the other team?"

Nesbitt smothered a laugh at Ben's bald question. "No! Or at least I don’t think so," he clarified. "But it's more as if that part of you, the part of you that notices when someone notices you, that part of all of us that twigs when someone is 'interested'..." he shrugged. "Kat doesn't seem to have it." Ben still looked confused and Jimmy sighed again, trying to articulate something that he'd only come to understand after weeks of patient observation. "She's sort of….neuter...is probably the best way to describe it, or maybe frozen is a better description. All these men make overtures to her all the time and she genuinely doesn't notice. And if they push it she looks horribly confused and rather upset and she just retreats at speed, leaving the poor fucker soaking in the humiliation of being comprehensively shot down. It's not pretty to watch."

"Is that what happened to the guy you mentioned?"

Jimmy nodded. "Yeah, the poor bastard." At Ben's enquiring look he continued. "He was one of the stunt co-ordinators and Kat spent a lot of time with those guys in training. And he must have got confused as to the kind of signals he thought she was giving off, or just got his wires crossed generally, but next thing we knew he tried to kiss her in the pub and when he wouldn't take no for an answer she over reacted a bit and punched him in the face." 

Ben winced. "Ouch."

"Indeed. She knocked him unconscious too. She's got some arm on her, has McPherson." Jimmy sounded strangely proud. "But something about the whole thing freaked her out something chronic, far more than it should have and that was when we," he clarified at Ben's enquiring look, "we, the Fellowship, realised that something wasn't right. Punching someone in the face certainly isn't the standard reaction of most girls when they get hit on in the pub. But it was also clear that she wasn't about to ever tell us why she had that reaction. So really, the best thing for all parties was to make sure that no one bothered her again, which we've been pretty successful at so far." He sounded rather proud of this achievement. 

"Which is why Aidan will never make a move." Ben noted in dawning realisation. 

"Exactly," Jimmy confirmed. "And neither will you, if you have any sense. Not if you actually want to build any kind of long term friendship with her." He gave Ben a sympathetic smile. "She's not to be had, not by us. Or maybe by anyone. I think it would take both an _extremely_ patient and determined bloke and a sea change in the way she perceives men before anyone would have a hope in hell. And so, you're shit out of luck mate, at least for the foreseeable future." He caught the slightly depressed expression on Ben's face and gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Cheer up. At least if you’re friends you might be around when she wakes up from her enchanted sleep."

"What?" Ben looked at Nesbitt in confusion at that last comment and Jimmy looked a little embarrassed. "Sorry, sorry. It was just a running joke I had with my wife. Sonia commented once that Kat looked very like Snow White - you know, that skin as pale as snow, hair as dark as coal thing." Ben nodded his agreement. It was true, McPherson did have that almost fairy tale colouring. 

Jimmy smiled. "So when were discussing her it became a bit of a thing - that she was like Snow White trapped inside a glass box of her own devising or Rapunzel trapped in the tower by her own hair."

"I see." And Ben did.

"I think you do, indeed. And until the Princess breaks out of her own enchantment," Jimmy shook his head ruefully. "Well, there's nothing us mere mortals can do to help her."

"Not unless one of us is a prince," Ben pointed out with inescapable logic.

"True." Jimmy looked at him keenly, "But I don’t think any of us is claiming to be that, are we?"

Ben sighed, giving up. "No," he capitulated. "I suppose we're not."

****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

 

By the time they had reached LAX Ben had come to two inescapable conclusions. One that McPherson was a fascinating woman, a genuine bundle of contradictions, and two, that he wanted to get to know her better, to keep in touch, even if the only relationship they ever had was platonic. Accordingly, he spent the last hour of the flight agonising over how he was going to get her contact details without giving her the impression that he was hitting on her. But as usual, he was over thinking things as Aidan unintentionally made things considerably easier for him.

They had been discussing Shakespeare and Turner had noted that he was keen to get tickets to go and see Mark Rylance's all male performance of Twelve Night at the Globe in September. Kat had eagerly seconded this and Ben had grasped at the opening. He pointed out diffidently that he knew Dominic Dromgoole, the Artistic Director quite well, and that he would be delighted to arrange for three tickets (Jimmy having demurred, Shakespeare not being as much of an obsession as it was for the other three) at a date to be agreed. Which of course, necessitated the exchange of contact information between the three of them in order to organise said event. 

Kat didn't comment when she briefly borrowed his mobile to tap in her contact details but Jimmy gave him a wry, amused, assessing look that Ben returned blandly, uncomfortably aware that he had been pretty transparent in his motives, at least to the male members of their party. But the gambit had succeeded and as they disembarked the plane at LAX into the sunshine and slight humidity of an LA summer afternoon Ben was feeling quite content with life.

Kat, Jimmy and Aidan only had a comparatively short period of time to get to their next connection so the awkwardness of saying goodbye was truncated by necessity. He shook hands with Nesbitt and with Aidan who clapped him heavily on the shoulder and commented. “I'm glad to discover that you're not the posh wanker I always thought you were.”

Ben favoured him with a sardonic look and responded in his best Harrow educated drawl. “Delighted, I'm sure....” For a moment they just eye balled each other and then both cracked up, sniggering. Standing beside James, Kat regarded them both with tolerant amusement while Jimmy simply shook his head in exasperation. “Hurry it up, Cumberbatch. Some of us _do_ have planes to catch.” Ben inclined his head in acknowledgement and turned to the female member of their party. 

“So I'll see you back in the Big Smoke, Ms McPherson?” 

She inclined her head. “It seems you will, Mr Cumberbatch,” she agreed.

He smiled at her, blue green eyes twinkling. “I look forward to it,” and held out a long fingered hand for her to shake. For a second she hesitated and then smiled, a small but genuine smile, as she reached out her hand to clasp his just for a moment. He felt the pressure of strong slender fingers and the warmth of her skin and then she pulled herself back, leaving just the ghost sensation of her skin against his to linger on Ben's nerves. Then the four of them hoisted up their various pieces of hand luggage and made to shift to go their separate ways. 

“Safe trip home, you unruly lot. Try not to get thrown off the plane, Aidan, or you Jimmy. Remember that the cutlery in First Class is for eating, not stabbing people.” Ben drawled, a picture of upper middle class public school hauteur.

“Fuck off, Cumberbitch,” Jimmy responded sharply, but he was grinning, as was Aidan and that small smile was hovering around Kat's full lips again. Ben mockingly bowed shallowly to both of them and then shifted slightly to face Kat and bowed a little deeper. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Ms McPherson.”

She smiled, saccharine-sweet and patently fake, at him. “It's been....interesting....to make yours, Mr Cumberbatch.” She raised an emphatic eyebrow. “I'll let you know whether it's been a pleasure at a later date when I have sufficient...evidence.... to make that assessment.”

Ben pretended to stumble back, hand over his heart at her response and Aidan sniggered. “Oooh, _burn_...” Kat fought valiantly to maintain a straight face, but the mirth of the others was contagious and she broke and joined in, her laughter cracking up her serious expression, eyes sparkling and to Ben, making her seem even more beautiful than before. But it was time to get moving and with a final smile to the group he backed away.

"Later, milady, gentlemen."

"Later, Cumberbatch," Turner responded. Jimmy and Kat contented themselves with a nod and a smile before they turned to go. Ben watched them for a moment as they ambled off, Kat in the middle, Jimmy striding along in a determined fashion and Aidan weaving in and out of the crowd and smiled. It was one of the delights of their shared profession, the chance to meet new people and have new experiences and he genuinely hoped he managed to stay in touch with all three of his erstwhile cast mates, but he was determined to make sure he stayed in touch with Katerina. A woman like that was, to use the cliché, a price above rubies.

He looked at his watch and swore. As usual, he had procrastinated and was now chronically late to meet his friend who was house-sitting Ben's LA rental and who had kindly offered to pick him up. He hoisted his bag on to his shoulder and set off at a fast clip, weaving through the crowds, moving at speed, thankful that his face wasn't so well known that he couldn't still be anonymous in certain situations if he so chose. By the time he burst out in to the sunlight of an LA afternoon he was over twenty minutes late and had managed to multi task enough on his way that he had already sent his mate a brief text to apologise. Thankfully, his friend was a patient sort and only let him sweat for a moment as he anxiously scanned the ranks of waiting cars before he leaned on the horn to get Cumberbatch's attention. 

Ben started apologising profusely before he was even fully in the car. "I'm _so_ sorry, Tom. As usual, I managed to get caught up and lost track of time."

Tom just lowered his sunglasses enough to give him an amused and long suffering look out of twinkling blue eyes. "Ben, mate. I've known you long enough to know that you are _never_ on time, unless you have a publicist chasing you. So, in the spirit of full disclosure, I didn't even arrive until ten minutes ago, as I knew there was no way in hell you were actually going to be waiting."

Ben just stared at him; outraged at the.....completely accurate now he thought of it.....accusation.

Hiddleston just grinned at him. "Really? You're going to fight me on this one, Ben?"

"Well, maybe, okay, aghh….no. No. All right. I admit that my time-keeping is crap."

Tom smirked even as he pulled the car out in the LA traffic. "Total crap," he shot back cheerfully. "Absolutely bollocking crap."

Ben frowned. "You don't have to rub it in," he replied sulkily. 

"I know," his mate agreed. "But I _want_ to. So totally, earth shatteringly absolutely crap."

Ben lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Enough already! I admit it – my time keeping is rubbish! Now can we move on?"

Tom glanced at him and grinned at the pout taking up residence on those famous lips. "Alright," he responded cheerfully. "So how was your flight?" 

Ben brightened perceptibly. "It was…really good, actually."

Tom frowned at him, a little surprised by the enthusiasm. "Really?"

"Yes," he nodded decisively. "The flight itself was fine, but I managed to persuade a few people to hitch a ride and we had...actually we had a really nice time."

Tom glanced at him again, his curiosity piqued. "Yeah? They had good chat?"

Ben nodded. "Absolutely, but more to the point one of them was a very talented musician who had brought her guitar with her, so she essentially treated us to a private concert for a good few hours." Tom noted the wide smile on Ben's face with a raised eyebrow of surprise. 

"She was good?"

"Oh, totally." Something about the smile on Ben's face made Tom glance at him with a bit more focus when they paused in traffic for a moment. He looked like....Tom grinned as the meaning behind that soft focused smile started to become apparent to him.

"Benedict Cumberbatch!" he teased. "Have you finally found a girl?"

Ben started, his thoughts shaken out the pleasant haze they had fallen into at the thought of Kat and her soft voice singing.

"What!? No! No, no, no." He shook his head in definite negation. "Nooo. She's lovely – and I would love to, but she's not...I mean I didn't..." he shook his head in frustration as he tried to articulate his thoughts out loud and failed horrendously. 

Tom raised an eyebrow at him in query. "Not amenable to your charms, mate? That's unusual."

"More to the point, not amenable to anyone's charms," Ben grumbled. "She's not interested in dating anyone just now, and her co-stars very firmly warned me off."

"So she's an actress, then?"

"Hhmm, yes. Scots girl. Plays Tauriel, the only female member of the main cast." 

Tom sneaked a look at him again.

"Pretty?"

" _Gorgeous_. But more than slightly out of my league," Ben conceded glumly.

Tom reached out with his free hand to pat his friend on the arm sympathetically. "Never mind. You're going to keep in touch?"

"Absolutely."

"Well, then. Maybe she'll be more inclined towards you in the future. You'll get your chance." He grinned. "And if that doesn't work, be a good mate, and introduce her to me!"

Ben glanced back at his friend and smirked. "Never going to happen, Hiddleston. If she didn't go for me you'll have _no_ chance. You wouldn't be just batting out of your league, Tom. You'd be dealing with an entirely different ball game - where you don't know the rules!"

Tom just laughed and changed the subject but Ben realised that he might have a point. He liked Tom, he did, but the bastard was stupidly good looking and devilishly charming when he wanted to be. Right there and then, he decided. 

_Note to self, Benedict. Never introduce Tom to Kat._

Because that was a disaster for any romantic hopes Ben might have with Kat just waiting to happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Please review!_


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Apologies for the delay - and for the extensive use of British vernacular and speech patterns - hopefully most of it should be easily translatable for regular readers of Brit fic! And 'Eilidh' is pronounced Ae-lee for anyone unfamiliar with the name.... please review!_

**_Toward House, North London –May 2012_**

With a final turn of a key in the lock and an enthusiastic shoulder to the door to heave it open, Kat finally finished a journey that had literally taken two days to complete. Of course, if you wanted to be more abstract, the 'journey' in this case had actually lasted around fourteen months, as that was the period of time she had been ensconced on set with the rest of Peter Jackson's mad, wandering clan, whether it was in the UK or in Kiwiland. But whether it was the slightly less epic New Zealand – LAX –London trip that she and Aidan and Jimmy had just finished or the far more momentous back to back filming marathon she was thinking about – well in both cases she was _very_ glad to be home. It had been far too long.

She dropped her bag on the floor of the hallway with a thump and immediately headed out the door again to rescue the rest of her stuff from the tender clutches of the slightly less than careful cabbie who had picked her up from Heathrow. She dragged the heavy suitcase up the steps and inside the door which she closed with a careless kick and then immediately had to back up against the wood and glass panelling as she was descended on by a whirlwind in human form.

"Katerina!! Kat, Kat, Kat!" Her arms were suddenly full of over enthusiastic house mate and she laughed helplessly as she found herself pulled into an inescapable embrace and bounced around the expanse of the generous reception hall like a rag doll.

"Eils, Eils, Eils!” she laughed. "Okay, put me down! I haven't survived the rigours of Middle Earth just to get smothered in my own front hall way!" With a final breathless giggle Eils released her so that they could stop their mad gallivant around the room and grinned at her, absent-mindedly sweeping the blond curls that had fallen over her face during their dance behind her ears.

"Oh –it's so good to see you! Is that it, is it done?"

Kat hugged her again briefly and then grabbed her shoulder bag and made for the stairs with Eils trailing behind her. "Done, and dusted," she confirmed. "Unless," she added over her shoulder as they climbed. "They decide to re-shoot anything when they are editing. If so, I might have to pop back to Kiwi land, but it will just be for a few weeks if that happens."

"Excellent! It's been far too quiet with just me and Tam in this bloody great house of yours." Her friend's words were vaguely disparaging but the tone was all affection, as she, Kat and Tamsin, the third of the trio, had all known each other since they were thirteen and Tamsin and Eilidh (or Eils for short) had been house sharing with Kat ever since they all graduated university almost four years ago now (two for Tamsin, as she had studied medicine). The other two girls had had various boyfriends come and go, but sensitive to Kat's discomfort with sleeping in a house where there were strange blokes wandering around, they had ensured that their extra curricular activities were conducted solely at other locations and none of the relationships involved had ever been serious enough that either of the girls had considered moving out. As Tam had pointed out in her characteristic dry fashion, it wasn't everyone that got to live rent free for years in what was essentially a mansion in Hampstead, so both of them would have to be pretty bloody sure the bloke was about to marry them before they would be prepared to give _that_ up.

Kat was just glad that her friends had stuck it out. To her the house was just part of her family's heritage, along with the estate on the West Coast of Scotland that Nick continued to run so ably to this day, but she had to admit that it would really be far too big with just her and Mr and Mrs Robertson, the general handyman come gardener and the housekeeper who had been with her family for as long as she could remember, rattling around in it. Eils and Tamsin being there kept the place from feeling as though it was stultifying under the ghosts of ancestors past, and more to the point, were both in residence more often than not, which meant that the old pile was still being utilised even when she was off on film and television locations for large chunks of the year.

Plus they were her oldest and best friends, who had been there for almost everything and knew more about her history than anyone else and so were tolerant of her various flaws and idiosyncrasies in a way that recent acquaintances were unlikely to be. In addition, they were totally unimpressed by either her increasing level of fame or the various high profile people she kept meeting as a consequence of her choice of career. After all, it was hard to think that your house mate was any form of glamazon, when you had had to hold her hair back the one and only time she tried to get completely slaughtered when she was seventeen, or when you had seen her covered in mud every week on the cross country course at school for years. 

In addition, both were very Scottish and had careers in non-arts related professions (Tamsin was a medical registrar, who had just started her specialist training in paediatrics and Eils was a civil engineer) which meant that they were fundamentally pragmatic, down to earth and extremely hard to impress which acted as a wonderful counterweight to the level of somewhat indulgent emotionalism and artistic caprice she often had to deal with in her chosen career on a day to day basis. They certainly weren't above giving her a good kick in the arse if they felt it was justified or a bracing pep talk if they felt she was being unfairly hard on herself. And like all good friendships it was wholly mutual. 

She finally reached the door to her room after trudging up another two flights of stairs and dropped her bag on the floor and her body flat on to the bed with a heart felt groan. Thankfully the sheets were fresh and clean (thank god for Mrs Robertson) and she mushed her face into the crisp cotton with a blissful sigh. But before she could give into the wave of sudden almost overwhelming fatigue that had overtaken her, the bed bounced and she found herself staring in to the blue eyes of her inquisitive house mate from the distance of a few centimetres. 

"I need sleep….." she moaned, closing her eyes and hoping that Eils would take the not so subtle hint. Fat chance of that, both of her friends had been ignoring her less than subtle hints for almost thirteen years now, and she had little hope of that ever changing. 'Bulldozer diplomacy', as Tam had nicknamed it years ago, was the official mantra of their household.

"No, you don't." Kat opened one exhausted eye to glare at her friend. "Oh well, maybe you do," Eils conceded. "But not until you have a shower and get changed, and, oh – and far more important, tell me about the shoot."

Kat opened both eyes and sighed gustily, resigned to the inevitable delay in her longed for oblivion. "Well, I can accept the logic of the shower and the change of clothes, but I can't condense fourteen months of prep and filming into the five minutes of consciousness I probably have left before I collapse."

Eils nodded her understanding against the bed sheets. "Of course," she acknowledged in a tone of exaggerated reason. "Just the important bits. You can tell us about the rest later. So, priorities. Did you meet any one you liked?"

Kat closed her eyes again as she tried to think of a way to dodge the question. "Well, I met some very nice people, some of which I would count as friends. For example, Peter Jackson is lovely and Jimmy Nesbitt was very kind to me and…."

Before she could go on with her litany Eils interrupted her, bouncing on the bed in her impatience. "That's not what I meant, Kat – and you know it! I meant did you meet anyone that you wanted to shag?"

Kat stilled against the bed clothes, a frisson of discomfort stiffening her frame. She really wished that Eils and Tam wouldn't keep asking her that question. The answer was always the same and she hated giving it, and how it made her feel when she saw the affectionate but hopeless looks that always accompanied its recitation. She buried deeper into the bed clothes in an attempt to evade the question, but she knew her flatmate well enough to know that Eils wasn't about to stop until she had some form of answer.

"No." She answered shortly. "I didn't. You know that I didn't. I'm not….interested in that, Eils. You know that."

She kept her eyes closed and her face partially buried in the bed clothes until she heard her house mate sigh in resignation, and felt the gentle stroke of Eils' hand on her hair. "I'm sorry. I'm a sucky friend, bombarding you with questions when you're exhausted. I had just hoped that if you were away from the familiar for a while, but somewhere comfortable you might just see, see if you would like too…."

"No! No. I didn't."

The hand stroking her hair paused, before resuming its repetitive soothing motion. "Okay, then. I'll not bug you about it again, not today. But Kat sweetheart, think about it. Just a little. You're so beautiful, and you could get so much from it…."

She pulled herself abruptly up from the bed, dislodging Eils' gentle hand from her hair. "I don't want to talk about it, Eils," she warned, looking down on her friend. "Just now, all I want to do is get a shower and then crash for a minimum of eight hours." 

Her house mate looked up at her, and then spread out her fingers in submission. "Okay, then. I promise – no more hassling the Kat!" She rolled up and off the bed and ambled over to Kat, throwing her arms around her old friend's stiff frame until she relaxed and hugged her back. "I love you, Kitkat and I'm so glad you're back."

Kat sighed into Eils' embrace, head dropping down on to her shoulder. "I love you too, even if you do have the tact of a brick sometimes."

"I know," Eils acknowledged, pulling back from her embrace. "Do you want me to wake you up any time soon?"

Kat nodded wearily, even as she moved to scrabble through her chest of drawers, looking for a pair of bottoms and a T-shirt to sleep in. "Yeah. It's," she checked her watch; "11.00 am now, so if you could wake me up at about five? I need to start kicking the jet-lag in the head so I don't want to crash for too long."

"Cool. Will do." Her friend made for the door but just before she exited she turned round to give Kat a bright smile. “I'm really very glad you're home, Kat. And so is Tam. It hasn't been the same without both of my sisters here.”

Kat smiled tiredly at her, touched despite her lingering irritation. “Me too, Eils. I missed you both – hugely.”

Her friend pointed an admonishing finger at her. “So no more buggering off to the other side of the planet for a year and a half then!”

Kat nodded gravely. “Yes, Ma'am.”

Eils grinned at her, recognising both the solemnity and the underlying mockery of her response and then sauntered out the door, closing it carefully behind her. Behind her Kat yawned, even as she stripped. She wasn't going to make that shower, she could tell. But at least she could get these clothes off before she collapsed. Two minutes later she was crashed out on her bed and the last conscious thoughts she had were that it is was good to be home...and that, maybe, somewhere deep down inside she thought that Eils might have a point.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I realise that the timing is slightly out with regard to principle photography for 12 years - but this is, after all, fiction, and certain liberties have to be taken! Please review!_

**_12 Years a Slave - Principal Photography, New Orleans - July 2012_ **

July in New Orleans was as hot as hell, which is why Steve, Mike, Chiwetel and Ben had long since ensconced themselves inside the hotel bar, luxuriating in the civilisation of air conditioning after a day filming in the horrendous heat of the fields which were standing in for the Epps plantation. All of them were desperate to wind down, and were loose, and a little silly, needing to decompress from the pressures of the day and as a consequence there was a considerable amount of alcohol being consumed. 

It was just the boys, as Lupita had sensibly decided to have an early night, and the four of them were in a raucous mood, shooting the shit and trading war stories of previous jobs to the accompaniment of a lot of laughter and a considerable amount of mockery, as well as more than a few drinks. Ben in particular was the subject of Steve and Mike's relentless piss taking as he did, (as he admitted himself) have a tendency to accidentally become involved in ridiculous situations on a fairly regular basis. Although, admittedly, he had never vomited on his co-star, as Mike had once done after a particularly hard night of drinking which was followed by an early call. But he had quite a few other stories to live down and eventually, in a spirit of pure self preservation, he attempted to change the subject.

“So, Steve, you've never said. What have you got in mind to follow up after we've finished _12 Years?_ ” he enquired _faux casual_ , in a not very subtle attempt to deflect some of the conversational focus away from himself. 

Steve smiled slowly, only too aware that this was a mere conversational distraction, but willing to indulge Ben's desire not to be the sole focus of the table's attention. 

He shrugged. “I've got no concrete plans, but I was thinking I need to do something a bit different. I've done three pretty heavy films in succession. So maybe something a bit lighter.” He glanced over at Mike and grinned. “What do you think, Fassy? You want to do a rom-com?” Mike snorted, and cracked up, almost dropping his drink at the concept of a Steve McQueen directed romantic comedy, his mind immediately going to some very scary places. God knows what that would be like. He was sniggering so hard that it took him a few moments to recover, and even then he had to wipe away the tears of laughter that had leaked down his cheeks before he could respond.

“Steve, buddy – we've already done one," he answered, deadpan for a moment. "It was called _Shame_ ,” before he and the rest of the table cracked up again.

Chiwetel was the first to recover this time. “Seriously, though, Steve. Any ideas?”

Steve shrugged again. “I really haven't given it much thought, but I may want to do something lighter.” He grinned again. “Mike, you can sing right?”

Fassbender shrugged himself, leaning back in his chair. “Sure, if I have to. Why?”

Steve smirked at him. “Options, man. I might want to do a musical, just checking.”

Mike grinned at him, pleased by the sub-text that Steve still intended them to work together whatever he ended up doing. Steve smiled back, eyes crinkling and then tilted his head to one side in thought.

“In all seriousness, I might want to do something from a different perspective. Everything I've pretty much done has been from a bloke's point of view. I might want to do something with a female lead, just to see how that would work.”

The other three men looked at him, all slightly surprised by the change in tenor of the conversation and Steve's unexpectedly serious comment. As often, Mike was the first one to respond. Taking another sip from his drink he noted dryly with a wry grin. “Well, mate. As flexible as I try to be for you, I think convincingly playing a woman on screen for two plus hours might be pushing my limits.”

Steve grinned, and nodded to him to indicate a point scored. “I appreciate your honesty, Michael,” he intoned gravely. “It's a serious casting problem that I'll have to deal with. It's a real pity that you don't have a female semi-identical twin.”

Mike smirked. “Well, I do have a sister, as you well know, but she's older than me and a brain surgeon to boot, so no. That's not going to work.”

Chiwetel smiled his wide slow smile. “Steve, mate. It's simple. All you have to do is find a female Michael. I mean, how hard can it be?”

All four of them chuckled to themselves. Finding someone who shared Fassbender's legendary rapport with McQueen would be a bloody tall order and they all knew it.

Ben interjected from where he had been sipping his drink, eager to keep the conversation going as long as it granted him a reprieve from his friends' unofficially scheduled piss take session. “So, what kind of actress would you look for?” At Steve's blank look, he attempted to clarify. “Blond, brunette, Yank, Brit, what?”

Steve frowned as he considered. “Definitely either a Brit, or someone from Europe. I like the training our people get, and the pragmatism, and logistically it's just easier if I'm not constantly having to juggle time zones if I want to talk to them. So based in the UK or Europe.”

Ben had picked up Steve's iPad which had been lying forgotten on the table between them and opened up a search page. “Okay then. Any particular preferences re age?” 

Steve looked thoughtful. “No earlier than mid twenties. I want a woman, not a girl. And at least that way I can be guaranteed a certain level of maturity. And probably no older then forty. Easier for audience identification that way.”

Ben mucked around with the iPad some more, and then looked back up at Steve. “Anything else?”

Steve pursued his lips as he considered, before he nodded. “Brains. She's got to be bright or she won't get what I'm trying to do, and trying to constantly explain it will drive me nuts. She doesn't have to be academic, you know. Just have something inside her skull.”

“You don't care about looks?” Chiwetel enquired delicately. 

Steve shook his head. “Not really. White, black, Asian, Chinese..I really don't care. And as long as she has a certain amount of character, looks are not high on my priority list.” 

Ben smiled. “So really, what you want is a character actress, preferably trapped inside a leading actress' body...”

“Well...” Steve considered. “When you put it like that....” he grinned sheepishly and the other men laughed. “It is a bit of a shopping list, I grant you. But I had a similar idea in mind for my male lead in _Hunger_ and I found Mike, so it's not impossible.”

There was a series of nods from around the table as they acknowledged the validity of his point. Ben however, kept searching until he pulled up a series of head-shots of female actors from the UK's main casting directory, Spotlight. One by one they pored over the head-shots, passing the tablet around the table and musing on possible choices, discarding others. Carey Mulligan and Nicole Beharie were discounted on the basis that Steve had worked with both before, and knew that they weren't exactly what he was looking for. Gemma Atherton was considered, but regretfully eliminated by Ben, “too gentle for you, Steve, she wouldn't be able to handle your, ahem, rather robust directorial style..”

Hayley Atwell was considered briefly, but then dismissed by Steve. From then on it was a bit of a free for all, as all three of the actors at the table threw the names of actresses that they worked with and admired, or just ones that they admired, whether for purely artistic reasons or not, into the mix.

Steve ran through the options and Ben pulled up head-shots on the tablet, which was passed around the table for consideration, accompanied by a certain amount of alcohol. Eventually, when they must have worked their way (fairly respectfully) through fifty actresses, Steve grabbed his tablet back off Ben and scrolled down the list, stopping at one particular head-shot that had caught his attention earlier. He maximised the screen and then dumped the tablet in the middle of the table for the other three to consider.

“What about her?”

The three actors examined their Director's choice with faint bemusement, which rapidly changed into tentative agreement. Chiwetel was the first to comment.

“Maybe. That might work. I've seen her on stage before. She's got a powerful stage presence and a decent level of experience as well. I think she's a Central graduate.”

“Hhmm.” Steve considered, before turning his attention to Ben, who was still regarding the image on the tablet with slightly intoxicated surprise. “What about you, Ben? You're pretty much the best connected person in the UK acting scene. Do you know her?”

Ben hesitated before replying; looking down at the black and white photo of the woman he had met so recently for the first time on the set of the _Hobbit_ , and then had shared a plane flight back to LA with. For some reason, he was hesitant to admit that he knew her, as the others would then understandably demand his opinion and at this stage, he was strangely reluctant to expose his embryonic relationship with her to other people's scrutiny. So, he did what he did best when confronted and he didn't want to say anything, he prevaricated and shrugged.

“I know _of_ her, of course. But no, I don't really know her personally.” He smiled wryly. “Even _I_ don't know everyone in the UK acting profession, lads. There are, after all, rather more than a few of us.”

“True.” Chiwetel acknowledged. “And anyway, she's a little notorious for being somewhat publicity shy anyway. Tends to avoid the normal luvvie social whirl.” He grinned at Ben. “Which of course, means that she wouldn't exactly bump into Ben anyway, as that _is_ , after all, his normal habitat.” Ben rolled his eyes at the gentle mockery and the other two men grinned at the truth of Chiwetel's statement. Cumberbatch was notorious as a terrible party animal and in London had a vast array of friends and acquaintances, across the worlds of music, fashion and art and literary circles as well as in theatre and film. There was a reason some people considered him to be one of the best connected men in Britain. Ben shook his head at his friend, and pushed up from his chair, spreading his hands wide in self-defence and shrugged.

“What can I say? I'm a people person; unlike you bunch of hopelessly maladjusted individuals. And on that note, I'm going to get us more drinks. Maybe if all of you get slaughtered enough, you might at the very least attempt to be sociable, like normal people.” And with a faux haughty sniff worthy of Sherlock he swept away towards the bar. The other three men grinned at each other and then Chiwetel pushed up to follow him.

“I'd better go and make sure that His Highness has enough hands to carry the drinks.”

Steve nodded solemnly at that eminently sensible suggestion as Chiwetel followed in Ben's overly dramatic wake, glancing aside as he did so at Fassbender, who had been uncharacteristically quiet for the last few minutes, not joining in the banter as he usually did.

Mike had been aware that the conversation had clearly moved on around him but for some reason he found himself lingering over the picture that Steve had pulled up on his tablet. The girl, no, the woman, in the photo was looking slightly away from the photographer, so that the composition of the shot was three quarter profile, rather than full frontal, and the photo had been cropped, so all the viewer saw was the woman's head pillowed on her folded arms, the metallic edge of whatever she was leaning on just in view, her pointed chin resting on the back of her overlapping wrists. It was a black and white composition, but that just brought the pallor of her skin and dark cloud of her hair cascading around her shoulders into even greater prominence, and those great dark eyes, heavily lashed, that lurked under winged eyebrows. She was beautiful, sure, but Mike had met (and slept with) an awful lot of beautiful women and it wasn't as if she was anything like his usual preference. Pretty much the opposite really, kind of like a hyper realised version of the girls he used to see back home growing up, with their Celtic pallor and their snapping eyes. But for some reason, every time he went to shut down the window he kept hesitating, his eyes drawn back to that impassive, non-smiling face. Maybe it was the high arch of her cheekbones, the uncompromising architecture of her face, which shivered on the trembling edge between harsh and beautiful or maybe it was something about those dark eyes, the strange combination of fierceness and vulnerability that the photographer had captured so well. It was a haunted face, reserve and withdrawal in every line of it, with eyes that were bruised by life, very different from a standard “Hollywood” head shot - and it intrigued him. Intrigued him enough that he lingered for long minutes more, strangely captivated, unconsciously committing the fine lines of her features to memory. In fact he was so engrossed that he didn't even notice when Ben and Chiwetel went to get drinks for the table, leaving him alone with Steve.

Steve had noticed Michael's uncharacteristic abstraction but had ignored it, assuming his friend just needed a moment to think undisturbed. But when he continued to just gaze at Steve's tablet with a frown etched across his forehead and didn't notice when his two cast members left the table to get more drinks, Steve felt that a comment was warranted.

“Mike.”

Mike didn't respond, but just continued to stare at the computer in his hand. Intrigued, Steve tilted his head to take in whatever the Irish man was so fascinated by. It was a picture of the actress they had been discussing earlier, and Mike was staring at it as though the black and white shot held all the answers in the universe, a frown of deep concentration on his face. Steve smiled to himself. He should have known it would be a girl. Mike could, on occasion, be a fairly linear creature, and if it wasn't about the work or about careering around at high speed, or his family and his mates, his likely causes of distraction were usually female.

He nudged his friend on the shoulder, and lifted his chin to indicate the cause of Mike's distraction when the other man glanced his way, still a little abstracted.

"She's very pretty. But not really your normal type," he noted mildly. He had a point, as Steve had been an amused observer of Mike's love life for a number of years and had noted a distinct preference towards women of colour. The sisters had a lock in with this one.

Fassbender blinked at him for a moment, not really all there, and then his gaze sharpened and he grinned, a little sheepishly. "Heh. Well…" he shrugged and shook his head in denial. "It's just an interesting photo. Little bit unusual, caught my attention." He took another look at that pale, haunted face and then decisively shut down the page, handing the tablet back to Steve and leaning back in his seat as he sipped his drink and grinned his shark toothed grin. 

Steve pinned his star with a wryly perceptive stare for a moment, amused by the deliberate nonchalance the actor was attempting to project. "But still. Pretty."

Fassbender seemed to consider the point for a moment, and then shrugged, clearly dismissing it. "Maybe. But as you said – not my type. And it's all academic, anyway." He glanced up to where Ben and Chiwetel were approaching their table, drinks for the four of them balanced in their hands, with clear relief, grateful for the distraction, and clambered to his feet to take his drink out of Ben's hands with the air of a man who was determined to move onto the next conversational topic.

Behind at the table Steve smiled to himself and made a note in his mental Rolodex against the actress' name. Katerina McPherson. Mike might be able to fool most people, but sometimes Steve knew him better than he knew himself, and despite what the actor might maintain, there had been something about that picture, and the woman in it, that had hit a nerve. And that was unusual enough in Steve's experience of his usually wholly self-confident star that he wanted to remember it. Just in case, because any woman who could put Mike on his back foot, both professionally and personally might be one that Steve might like to meet.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Castle Toward exists in real life, although unfortunately is a shadow of its former glory. For non-UK readers, a Countess is the female equivalent of an Earl, which is an ancient rank in the peerage of both Scotland and England. However, there is no Earldom of Toward and Connell, and the Duke of Argyll would probably prefer that I not randomly assign bits of his hereditary lands away anyway! But please review, it would be nice to know if anyone is still reading this._

_Toward House, North London – December 2012_

"Kat! I'm off now!"

Tamsin's russet crowned head popped through the door into the main living room, searching for her elusive house mate. It was December 21st and, like the other two members of their little household, she was about to set off on her annual pilgrimage to Scotland for the Christmas holidays, flying north in the face of winter, like a wildlife reverse migration. But first, she wanted to wish her friend merry Christmas.

Not seeing any sign of her, Tam meandered through the faintly labyrinth corridors of the house trying to guess where McPherson might have decided to park herself. Even after living in this house with Kat and Eilidh for long enough that it had genuinely begun to feel like home, she would sometimes still find herself chuckling at the sheer absurdity of her circumstances. She had been a scholarship brat at Fettes, the Edinburgh boarding school she, Kat and Eils had all attended, and even though she had seldom if ever felt discriminated against, and had genuinely enjoyed her school days, she never would have thought it would have led to her living in a house like this. And she certainly would never have guessed that her bossy thirteen year old self's impulse to befriend the silent, skinny, withdrawn girl standing behind her in the queue for registration would have resulted in one of the most important relationships in her life.

She had known, with the instinctual empathy that would eventually draw her so inescapably to medicine, that something wasn't quite right with the other girl and even then it hadn’t been in her to just walk past anyone who seemed to be in pain, whether it was physical or emotional. But it wasn't as if Kat had made it easy for her. She had hardly spoken for the first three months of school, almost mute, hiding behind her hair and on the weekends draped in ancient baggy jogging bottoms and giant jumpers, flinching from anyone who made a sudden move around her, permanently on edge, waking up the entire dorm sometimes with her nightmares. Tam had watched her, and watched out for her, noting how her new friend would freeze when a male in authority came near her, watching how she regarded the older boys in the school with a kind of animal stillness as if she was just waiting for something to happen. But she had also noted how the school accommodated her friend, how those male teachers never spoke to her alone, how they never tried to touch her or move into her personal space, and how they clearly telegraphed their movements around her, doing everything they could to set her at ease. And there were the extra classes that Kat had that no-one else did, which Tam was to find out later were counselling and martial arts sessions, and once Kat was older (when she decided to stop counselling) segued into more intensive self defence sessions and hours spent at the range under the careful tutelage of the range Sergeant-Major, who Kat explained years later, had been a friend of both her Dad and her god-father, Nick. But what it had all clearly signified to an observant teenager like Tamsin was that something genuinely bad had happened to her friend and that all those little behaviours Tam kept catching were rooted in reality, not just neurosis. And as a result, as she took the time to really get to know the withdrawn brunette, the instinctive sympathy Tams had felt for the other girl had only deepened.

But it hadn't at all been just a one sided relationship. It may have taken months, but bit by bit Kat had begun to slowly unfurl from her self protective huddle, opening up a little, even if initially only to Tam, and then to Eils when the bubbly blond had joined the school in the Spring term and had decided, for reasons known only to herself, to attach herself at the hip to the two of them. By the time the summer term had rolled around Kat had relaxed enough that her characteristic black sense of humour was increasingly apparent, and the cumulative effect of Tam and Eils' concentrated goodwill had bonded the three of them for life. And it was a bond that had survived the next five years of boarding school, the stress of academic achievement and then four years at Oxford for Kat and Eils when Kat stayed on for her Masters and Eils finished her engineering post grad, (six for Tam as she was reading medicine). Consequently, it seemed natural that after university, when Kat and Eils headed for London, with Tam making plans to follow afterwards, they would do their best not to be separated.

And so Kat had offered them the use of her house, and although both Eils and Tam sometimes found the fact that they essentially lived in a mansion somewhat bizarre, they certainly weren't going to allow a little bit of culture shock to break up an arrangement that had been working well for all three of them since they were thirteen years old.

But every so often Tam had to just stop and take stock of the weirdness of her life. She lived rent free in a mansion with a genuine member of the Scottish aristocracy (not _that_ highly ranked, as Kat was at pains to keep stressing, and it wasn't as if she ever used the title) who had somehow managed to become an internationally well known actress, and a mad civil engineer who wasn't above building giant papier-mâché models of bridges on the kitchen table while simultaneously painting her toe nails sparkly pink. It was all a bit much for a sensible girl from the Highlands. But admittedly, she wouldn't change it for the world. 

While she had been musing she had checked the library, Kat's study, the morning room, the drawing room, the music room and she had even popped her head into the formal dining room, not that she expected her house mate to be lurking in that almost redundant room. But still no Kat. She sighed to herself. At least it narrowed down the options. She wouldn't be in the formal part of the house that had been designed for entertaining as they hardly ever used it, or the conservatory, but she might be in the kitchen so Tam popped down the stairs to check. No – empty. She paused for a second to consider her options and then she heard the tell tale noise of leather punching leather quietly echoing up the stairs leading to the basement and the cellars. Result! 

Bouncing down the winding staircase she slipped along the corridor to the cellar that Kat's Dad had converted in to a gym decades ago, and that Kat had updated and partly transformed into a dance studio as well when she moved back into the house on a quasi-full time basis. The steady thud of leather on leather clued her in that Kat was indulging the martial arts side of her training, rather than the ballet, and sure enough when she pushed through the partly closed door she was confronted with the sight of her house mate doing her athletic best to beat the living hell out of a much patched and repaired punch bag, every precisely chosen kick and punch sufficient to send it swinging wildly, only held in place by the anchor chains that fixed it to the ceiling and the floor. 

Even when she was busy decimating an imaginary opponent Tam couldn’t help but wonder at how attractive her best friend remained. To Tam, who remembered the scrawny withdrawn girl she had first met, Kat's gradual growth into herself and her looks was one the best examples of the Ugly Duckling becoming a swan that she had ever seen. 

Her friend had spent the entirety of her time at Fettes hiding what she looked like, wielding the camouflage of deliberate scruffiness like a weapon, letting everyone see only an awkward adolescent tangle of skinny, too long legs, thick, constantly snarled hair that she only didn't chop off entirely because, as she had once confided to Tam, her mother had loved it long, and deliberately slumped posture. She hadn't wanted to be noticed by any of the boys at school and she had mostly succeeded, and the few that had realised what that deliberate camouflage had been concealing had been quickly dissuaded by Kat's total, icy, lack of interest and her tendency towards physical over-reaction that quickly shifted into violence if they attempted to push their attentions. But once they were at Oxford and Kat had gravitated inexorably towards the OU Drama Society Tam's friend had reluctantly realised that by hiding herself she wasn't doing either her acting, or her chance of actually getting better roles any favours. So Kat had partially given in, taming her hair, standing up straighter, and making the barest concessions towards neatness. Those too long legs finally came under her control as the temporary ungainliness of adolescence shifted into the grace of the martial artist she had always been, and those awkward angles softened into perfectly proportioned hourglass curves. But although the outside had shifted from that of an isolated and emo Goth influenced quintessential angry teenager into that of a woman that men stared at as she stalked past, the interior, that frozen lack of interest, hadn't evolved one bit and it was that issue Tam was about to beard the lion in its den about today.

Kat twigged her presence as soon as she pushed through the door and immediately stopped her assault on the bag, the sweat patches clearly visible over most of her torso through her t-shirt evidence of the fact that she'd been at it for a while. But from the relaxation in her posture and the bright grin she gave her friend as she unhooked her ear buds, it was obvious that this was purely a workout for fitness and fun, and not one that she was using as a particularly violent form of therapy.

"Tams!"

"Kats!" She went to give her house mate a hug and then paused as she took in the distinctly ripe condition of her clothing and stopped, wrinkling her nose. Kat laughed soundlessly at her fastidiousness and moved over to the side of the room, stripping off her soaked t-shirt and slipping on and zipping up the fleece she had left there before grabbing her reluctant flatmate in a hug. 

"Gah! You still stink!"

Kat chuckled but didn't deny it and just hugged her harder. "You're a doctor. Bodily fluids aren't meant to make you uncomfortable!"

Tams sniffed and struggled free. "I'm a paediatrician," she pointed out primly. "And as a consequence, most of my patients, being pre-adolescent, do not really sweat." She then spoiled the attempt to appear suitably offended by grinning and Kat laughed back at her, even as she gave her house mate a quick once over. It wasn't like Tam to interrupt her when she was in the middle of a workout and she quickly twigged from the sensible jeans and Converse and the layers of tops she was wearing (very different from Tam's somewhat high maintenance day to day attire) that her friend was about to leave for her epic drive back to Scotland.

"All set?" 

Tam nodded. "I'll have to stop at a service station somewhere near Birmingham to refuel, but apart from that I'm sorted. If I leave now I should get home about 11 tonight."

"Stopping at Westmoreland for dinner?" 

Tam grinned at the mention of the only decent service station on the route to Scotland. "You know it. Are you sure I can't give you a lift? I could take you as far as Glasgow, no problem."

Kat shook her head. "It's fine. I've a flight booked for tomorrow and Nick's picking me up from Glasgow airport. Are we still up for meeting on the 2nd?"

For the last decade that had been the tradition, that the three girls and Kat's god-father Nick would take a few extra days of holiday post New Year and head out for a week's skiing or snow-boarding and this year was no exception. 

"Yup, all sorted. Looking forward to it. Oh – before I forget." Kat smiled at her house-mate as Tam ceremoniously handed over a bag with a carefully wrapped gift in it. She had already given Tam her present to take North with her the day before. "Merry Christmas, sweetie."

They hugged again. "Thanks, Tams." She made to pull back from the embrace but to her mild surprise the other woman held on, holding her by her forearms and studying her face. Quizzically, she tilted her head to one side, wondering what was going on.

"Kats," Tam started slowly, hoping to not trigger the inevitable explosion that she feared might be about to come, but determined to say her piece. Already, one elegant eyebrow was starting to arch and those admired green eyes had started to narrow.

"Yes?"

Before she could lose her nerve, Tam reached into her jeans pocket and placed the rectangle of card she drew out into Kat's open palm, gently pressing her flatmate's fingers around the edges of it. Kat glanced down curiously. The card was black and very plain, and simply noted in raised white letters " _Amanda Carter_ " and then underneath in smaller white type– " _Psychosexual and relationship therapy._ " Kat looked up again at her friend with hooded eyes but before she could say anything Tam raised a quelling finger and overrode her unspoken protests.

"I know that this is something you don't want to talk about. And you don't _have_ to talk about it," she pointed out gently. "With me. Or with anyone else you know. But I've done my research and this woman has come highly recommended. She's meant to be very good. She's had a lot of experience in helping abuse survivors." Kat's eyes narrowed further and she made to pull away from her friend's gentle grasp on her arm, but Tam held on firmly. 

"Kats. Sweetheart. You are so strong in everything else in your life, but in this one thing you're like the Queen of avoidance and it's such a waste!" She pulled back to gesture at her friend. "You're beautiful and kind and strong and witty and it's all locked up tight behind these glass walls where no-one but your friends ever get to see it." Kat frowned at her and made to speak, but Tamsin overrode her again. "I know you say you don't need to explore that part of yourself, but I _know_ that you want a family someday, and while you can totally do that by yourself without ever getting into a romantic relationship with someone it's incredibly defeatist not to even open yourself up to the possibility of something that could be wonderful." She waved her hands in the air, determined to push her point home while her friend stayed somewhat receptive. "And you've got all this passion inside you and I know it comes out in your work, but sweetie," she begged. "Why can't you get to experience some of the joys of that in your personal life as well? And unfortunately, it's not as if you are gay, because I know that for you with your history that would be a lot easier to handle than being attracted to men." She made a quasi-comical face at the un-fortunateness of life and despite herself, Kat smiled a little. 

"So, I think that if you ever want to dip your toe into that water, metaphorically speaking and I really, _really_ think you should consider it, you might have to have some help learning to swim. And I think this lady could help you with that." She paused, out of breath and waited for the inevitable explosion. However, to her surprise Kat didn't blow up, but instead took a deep breath and looked down at the card in her hand for a moment before replying.

"I'll..think about it," she answered quietly. "I'm not willing to promise you anything more than that. But I will think about it."

Delighted by receiving more of a concession in this area than she or Eils had ever received before, Tam leaned forward again and pulled her reluctant house mate into a huge hug, holding her tightly. After a second of resistance Kat sighed and gave in, wrapping her arms around the other woman and dropping her head to lean her chin on Tams' shoulder. "I'll think about it, Tams," she murmured. "That's all I'm promising."

"I know," her friend acknowledged. "But even that's more than you've been willing to consider before, so," she shrugged. "I'm happy. Merry Christmas Kitten Kat, I love you."

Despite herself Kat smiled at the old, affectionate nickname. "Merry Christmas yourself, you interfering witch. I love you too."

\------------------------------------------------------------------

 

_Castle Toward Estate – West Coast of Scotland, Christmas Day 2012_

The room was dimly lit, just the light of the coal fire casting flickering shadows against the walls and the soft illumination of the table lamp lifting the darkness, and Kat sighed as she shifted further on the couch, the remnants of dinner a comfortable weight in her stomach. For once it actually was a white Christmas, and outside the mullioned windows snow fell softly across the breadth of the estate, closed to the public for Christmas Day, blanketing the familiar surroundings and rendering all the landmarks strangely anonymous. 

As always, coming back home to the estate brought up mixed feelings. On the one hand it was her childhood home and deeply beloved, her family's legacy that she had a duty to protect and preserve for the next generation of McPhersons to hold it. And also, the vast majority of the memories wound into the buildings and the land were good ones for her, memories of her Mum and Dad and Nick and all the childhood freedom, growth and learning she had enjoyed before her parents died. And even since they died, the estate had always been a sanctuary, a place to lick her wounds in the immediate aftermath of the events that had so hurt her, and a respite from the outside world in the years since, a place to come to rest and recover, until she was strong enough to venture forth again. And at the heart of the estate since her parents passed had always been Nick, running the place with his iron fist in the velvet glove, his care and competence allowing her the freedom to live her own life and make her own choices without feeling duty bound to oversee the land on a daily basis. 

But on the other hand, coming back always felt a little like a snake trying to climb back into a skin it had previously shed. The first time when she was home that one of the estate staff addressed her as “Milady,” she always had to fight the urge to check over her shoulder to see if he or she was addressing someone else. Perhaps if her Mum and Dad had survived she would have slowly grown more comfortable with the concept of eventually owning this estate, of truly being Lady Katerina Alexandra McPherson of Toward, Countess of Toward and Connell, The Toward McPherson. Certainly, with the benefit of adult hindsight she realised that her Dad had been gently guiding her in that direction from when she was very young. But it would have been a legacy that she would have had years; decades even, to grow into, working alongside her Father and Mother as she did so. Instead, it all devolved upon her in one fell swoop with her Dad's death, the title and the lands both and she had been far too young to handle any of it. And she still felt too young for the title, although she had slowly grown into the rest of it. So, she simply never used it. She had enrolled at Oxford and Central as plain Katerina McPherson, and her Equity name was the same and that was that. And no-one outside the estate ever called her anything but the name she had chosen. So coming home was always a bit of a culture shock.

Thinking about her parents always made her a little melancholy and she shifted on the couch again and sighed quietly, wondering what they would have thought of their daughter if they could see her now. She hoped that they would have been proud of her for not giving in, for fighting to build herself up again after what had happened. Well, almost building herself up. 

Unbidden, her thoughts drifted to the slim black card that Tam had pressed upon her back down in London before she left for Christmas and she frowned silently. She didn't know what to do about that. On the one hand she was willing to acknowledge that Tam might have a point. She had spent so much time rebuilding herself over the years, but in this one area, that of attraction and desire, she always felt like Snow White in her glass coffin, silently watching as people passed her by, but fundamentally untouched. And although it felt normal to her, she knew enough to understand that it really wasn't. Some part of her, the part that would have delighted in her own sexuality, the part of her that should have joyously discovered her sensuality and powers of attraction as she turned into a woman, had broken when she was eleven years old and had never really healed. She knew that, deep in her gut. But the issue was – did she even want to try and fix that “broken” part of her? Most days, she thought not. Some things were very simple and linear if sexual desire didn't come into them. It was almost refreshing to know that your clarity of thought and decision making abilities were never going to be muddled by lust. But the other part of her, the logical analytical part told her that not feeling in this way was fundamentally unhealthy, and more importantly, something that would have deeply hurt her parents if they saw how absolutely she held herself apart from the potential for joy and family that a truly deep relationship with a lover could bring. 

She knew that abstractly, but it was difficult to make the choice when she'd never really felt desire for a man, and in all honesty, had hardly really wanted to. With a very few treasured exceptions, men were creatures that she was remained fundamentally wary of, rather than anyone she would consider truly trustworthy and desire had simply never come into it. But maybe she needed to at least _try_ and fix that. Even if she never explored that part of herself any further, at least then she would know that she wasn't broken any more.

She sighed again and across the room there was a rustle of paper as Nick turned a page of his book and the soft clink of crystal as he put down his tumbler of whisky on the side table next to his chair.

"I can hear you thinking from over here, you know," he commented mildly, breaking the contemplative quiet the room had been enveloped in until that point. She turned her head on the couch to look at him and smiled at that so familiar figure, the one constant of her entire life, the only man she truly trusted since her parents had died, his dark hair now heavily threaded with silver.

"Sorry," she dryly teased. "I'll try not to let my over-loud brain overwhelm your terribly sensitive wee ears…."

His mouth quirked at the edges in amusement at her gentle mockery, but then he raised an enquiring eyebrow at her. "So, what's got you so bothered anyway?"

She glanced away from him again, momentarily studying the familiar ornate plasterwork on the ceiling before she replied. "Tam and Eils both think I should go and see another counsellor," she paused and glanced back at him before she continued. His expression was calm and accepting, encouraging her to keep going. "Not a normal shrink like before, but one that specialises in relationship therapy, psychosexual therapy to be exact."

There was a moment's silence as he absorbed that, lifting his glass to take a sip of the amber liquid it held before he replaced the glass on the table with a solid chink of crystal on wood. "And what do you think about that?" he interrogated gently.

She sighed and looked back at the ceiling again. "I think," she hesitated before replying, "I think that I don’t know."

"Ah."

She glanced back at him. "What do _you_ think?" 

He smiled wryly at her attempt to extract his opinion. She knew only too well that he was a man who kept his own counsel, something that had frustrated her immensely when she was a teenager, but that she appreciated in retrospect. He would help her, and guide her, but she had always made all of her important decisions by herself, and by now that self-reliance was an intrinsic part of her character.

"I think, Kitten, that as always, it matters most what _you_ think."

"But I don't _know_ what I think." There was a hint of petulance in her voice and his mouth quirked in amusement at this remnant of the reclusive adolescent she had once been.

"What does your gut tell you?"

She frowned at him and stared back at the ceiling as she gave his question the appropriate consideration. What did her gut tell her? Her face twisted in a moue of irritation as she realised that what her gut was suddenly telling her was what she had known all along, and perhaps had been pointedly ignoring.

"I think," she articulated slowly to the ceiling and the silent listening figure of her godfather. "I think that there are parts of me that are still broken." She paused, waiting for any reaction, but Nick didn’t demur the point and she moved on, strangely emboldened by his tacit agreement. "And I think that my Mum and Dad wouldn't like that." 

Across the room her listener stilled and then shifted and ventured to interject. "Kitten, we've talked about this. You can't live your life for what they might, theoretically, have wanted."

"I know," she glanced at him again. "But I don't like the fact that I'm broken either." She smiled a little tremulously at him, appreciating the fact that he didn't try and deny what they both knew to be true, even though he hated hearing her call herself that. 

"Okay, then," he encouraged gently. "So what do _you_ want?"

She shifted on the couch, examining the ceiling again. "I don't want to be broken any more, Nick. I want to be whole." There was an echo of long held pain in her voice, and sensitive to it, he put his book aside and stood up, moving over to the couch where she was lying and held out a hand. She looked up at it, and him, her eyes glittering in the firelight with the edge of tears she was too stubborn to shed, and slipped her feet over the edge of the couch as he tugged her up into his embrace, bear like arms wrapping around her, tucking her head on to his shoulder. She buried her face in the scratchy wool of his jumper, a few tears escaping her iron self control and he rocked the two of them from side to side as he soothed her, running a gnarled hand over the thick mass of her hair.

"It'll be okay, lassie,” he crooned. “It'll be okay. You fixed the rest; you'll fix this one too. I know that you can. And if you need it, I'll always help you. And at the end of it all, you won't be broken any more."

He rocked her and she wept and outside, the snow fell silently, blocking out the marks of the past, and however temporarily, making it seem as though nature had granted every blemish a clean slate. And held tightly in the arms of the one man she truly trusted, Kat turned her head to watch the endless flakes fall down, her tears slowly drying. Maybe, maybe, if she really worked at it, that grace might be extended to her too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Please review!_


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Please review! And apologies for British spelling/vernacular. As a Brit I come by it naturally!_

_Home of James MacAvoy and Anne-Marie Duff, North London, late January 2013_

"Babes, I'm home," he called, dropping his keys in the bowl on the hall table as always. To his faint surprise, there was no answer, although James knew that Anne-Marie was in from the lights on around the flat and the faint sound of the TV playing down the hall in the living room. But otherwise the place was pretty quiet, no pounding of a small boy's feet, or blaring of music, and James took a moment to bask in the unaccustomed tranquillity after a long day in rehearsal.

He stripped down out of his coat and scarf, toeing off his shoes and kicking them under the table and then padded comfortably down the hall towards the living room, only to pause in mild surprise when a sudden burst of female laughter threaded its way round the partially closed door he was heading for. He recognised the sound of his wife's deliciously dirty merriment, but the other laugh was strange to him and after a moment's pause, he continued towards its source, curiosity piqued.

When he pushed open the living room door, two feminine heads turned to him as one, surprise clearly written over both expressions. Anne-Marie was the first to recover, that gorgeous smile that he so loved breaking over her face like the sun as she grinned at him delightedly, and made to get up from where she was curled up on the couch.

"James! You're early. I didn't think you'd be back until eight."

He smiled back at her, loving the fact that that smile of hers could still make his heart beat faster even after being together for almost a decade. He crossed over to forestall her attempts to extract herself from the depths of the couch, glancing briefly at her guest as he did so before he dropped a brief kiss on his wife's upturned lips and collapsed beside her. 

"We managed to rip our way through a lot much earlier than we expected, so Jamie let us off for tonight."

She snuggled into his side with a pleased smile. "Excellent."

"Where's the wee man?"

"He's down for a nap upstairs. Playgroup knackered him today."

James chuckled and looked down at his wife in affectionate amusement. Anne-Marie had clearly become sufficiently distracted that she had totally forgotten that she hadn't bothered to introduce him to the woman who was sitting quietly on the couch opposite, long legs curled up on the cushion, mug of tea held in both hands and balanced on one upturned knee. 

"Babes," he gently nudged her. "I think you're forgetting something." She frowned up to him and then glanced in the direction of his gaze and twigged. "Oh," she pulled herself into more of a sitting position in her embarrassment. "Of course! Sorry," she apologised to both of them. James just grinned at her and across the room he caught the edge of a smile hovering on their guest's face, swiftly covered up by a diplomatic sip of tea. 

"James," she patted him on the chest to get his attention. "This is Kat. She's working with me on " _Another Shore_. Kat, my husband, James."

James levered himself up from the couch and ambled over to where the newly introduced "Kat" was sitting up to meet him, long legs uncurling from beneath her. He stuck out a hand in greeting, and after the tiniest hesitation she took it, slim fingers briefly clasping his. 

"Hi," he smiled at her. "James MacAvoy."

She smiled back, a little tentatively. "Kat McPherson. Nice to meet you, Mr MacAvoy." Her voice was low and soft and honeyed with an accent that immediately caused James to brighten. 

"Excellent! Another Jock!" He turned briefly back to his wife. "Babes, you do have the best taste in new acquaintances." Anne –Marie grinned at him and he turned back to examine their guest with new interest. That accent….definitely Scottish and West coast as well, making him feel just a tang of homesickness, even though in real terms, home was now London and Anne-Marie and his wee boy. But still…

"Och no, please call me James. We north of the border types aren't ones to stand on ceremony." She smiled again at that, her face lighting up and James gaze sharpened as he realised just how pretty their guest was. In fact she was really, really lovely, in a subtly Celtic way, all dark hair and pale skin, huge green eyes and slightly unusual cheekbones and the tilt of her eyes, paired with a stubborn chin and cupid bow red lips.

"Then it's Kat, please." 

"Good, then. Nice to meet you." He plopped back on the couch next to his wife and regarded their guest with a frank curiosity that she returned, head tilted slightly to one side as she considered him. 

"So, where are you from, Kat?"

She regarded him for a moment before answering, impish laughter in her eyes. "Scotland."

Anne-Marie chuckled and James barked a laugh. It was one of the consistent things about being a Scot in London; people never knew exactly where anywhere you mentioned in Scotland was, so you became a master of geographical generalisation. "Hah. So," he levelled her with an amused look. "Where you from, Kat?"

The smile hovering around the corners of her mouth widened as she capitulated. "Near Helensburgh originally, but I went to school in Edinburgh when I was 13, and I've been down south since uni."

"Yeah?" His interest piqued MacAvoy leaned forward. "That's pretty close to mine. I'm Drumchapel." She nodded in understanding and the next ten minutes quickly generated into the kind of rapid fire "Scots off" that often happened when two Scots met up in London, quickly establishing places, and potentially people, they had in common. It turned out they had both been to a number of the same places growing up, but didn't have many people in common, not surprising as his mates were all based in Glasgow and she had essentially moved to Edinburgh when she was thirteen and then had gone straight to Oxford. Plus, she was younger than him (maybe four or five years?) so that put a further crimp in them knowing the same people. 

After watching several minutes of the rapid fire dialogue that was becoming increasingly quick (and accented) as the two went on, Anne-Marie felt obliged to intervene. "Sweetheart, Kat's not that long back from filming _The Hobbit_ down in New Zealand."

James turned back to their guest for confirmation, intrigued. "Yeah? That's great. I spent about six months filming there back in '04, when I was doing _The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe_. How was it?"

She smiled softly in remembrance. "It was great. But very _long_. I spent about fourteen months on it in total and my character's only in parts 2 and 3. We started principal photography in New Zealand in March back in 2011, then there was, thank god, a bit of a break back home as they shot some stuff at Pinewood in July, then we were back in New Zealand from August to December, had a break for Christmas and then we kept on going until May 2012. And I've got some more to do in May this year."

James reared back in mild astonishment. That was one hell of a long shoot. "Wow. I don't think I've ever done anything that took up _that_ amount of time."

Her mouth twitched and she agreed solemnly. "It was somewhat epic. And I'm only in parts two and three, so I had the occasional period off to come home – poor Martin and the lads were pretty much trapped down there."

"Martin – do you mean Martin Freeman?"

At her nod he grinned. "Then if you know Martin, you have to know my mate Ben. Ben Cumberbatch? We did _Atonement_ together back in 2006 and we've kept in touch."

Kat smiled wryly. "We've met. Martin introduced us when Ben was down doing some of his motion capture filming for Smaug. He was suitably…dragon-ish." Her tone was dry and somewhat sardonic and both James and Anne-Marie chuckled, familiar with Ben's particular form of insanity from long exposure.

"Yeah. I can imagine. But he's a good guy."

Their guest's face softened at that comment. "He is. He gave Jimmy Nesbit and Adrian Turner and I a lift back to LA on the plane that the studio had sent to whisk him back to the _Trek_ set, and we've kept in touch since then. He's dragged me out of my hidey hole a few times to meet up for drinks and dinner when he's in town." She raised a dryly amused eyebrow. "He can be pretty persuasive when he wants to be."

Her hosts nodded their amused agreement at her assessment of Ben's character, and the rest of the visit degenerated into a quasi-hilarious gentle piss take of Ben and other co-stars all three of them had had, especially those that were " _terribly artistic, darling_." Half an hour later, Kat politely excused herself on the basis that they undoubtedly had things to do, and with a brief, but friendly good-bye, and the expression of a genuine hope on James' part that they would meet again, as well as an invitation to come to see Macbeth when the run started she was gone, but not before Anne-Marie showed her out, giving her a hug and agreeing to meet for lunch the day after tomorrow when they were both scheduled to be on set again.

When she came back James was sprawled on the couch, legs draped over the end and she simply collapsed on top of him, ignoring his "ouefff" of expelled breath. He immediately wrapped his arms around her and for a moment they just lay together, eyes closed, enjoying the peace and quiet and each other's presence. Then Anne-Marie propped herself up on one elbow and looked down at her husband's relaxed face, tracing a wandering path down one cheek and across his lips with a finger until he nipped at her ambling appendage and she chuckled.

"So, what do you think?"

"What do I think of what?" He replied, eyes still closed, deliberately misunderstanding her. She smirked, and tapped him on the nose.

"Kat, of course. What do you think?"

He opened his eyes and gave her an amused look. "Babe – what does it matter what I think? She's _your_ friend." She rolled her eyes and tapped him on the nose again. 

"But I want your opinion. What did you think of her?" James pursued his lips in amusement and then gave the question proper consideration before answering his wife.

"I think." He replied slowly, "that I quite like her." He paused, considering his words. "She's very….down to earth." 

"And funny," his wife interjected, referencing the ten minutes of hysterically deadpan imitations of various over the top characters that MacPherson had worked with that she had entertained them with earlier.

He raised an eyebrow in agreement. "She is that." He hesitated. "She's got a very Scottish sense of humour," he noted admiringly. "Very black." 

Anne-Marie giggled. "I thought you'd approve of that."

He smirked back at her. 

"Is she any good?" He enquired with another raised eyebrow. Which was their personal shorthand for whether McPherson had any actual acting chops. Anne-Marie nodded enthusiastically and seriously. 

"She's very good. Her part's a bit lightly written but she's really given it legs and she's great to bounce off of. Lots of meaty stuff. And she's very well prepared. Almost anally so. And you're right...." She ignored his sotto voice murmur of " _as always_ ,” with the ease of long practice. "She's very down to earth. Very practical. Rather pragmatic."

"Quite reserved, though." Her husband noted. "I noticed she doesn't name drop, and I don't think she does the party circuit. I got the impression that Ben might have had to drag her out with him."

Anne-Marie chuckled musically. "That'll be a change for Ben." She shifted on top of her husband and parts of James stirred in response. "No, I think you're right. She's a bit like us, I think, just wants to do the job and avoid the rest of the bullshit. Not exactly a party animal. From what she says, she does go out; she just keeps a pretty low profile when she does."

“Sounds sensible," he commented approvingly. "So are you going to keep in touch with her once your gig is over?" he enquired, genuinely curious. His wife was a veteran of their business and was usually very careful about her professional and personal boundaries, understanding only too well the false intimacy that working together so closely with a bunch of people who rapidly evolved from strangers to compatriots could create. As a consequence, Anne-Marie generally politely and gently cut ties once she moved on from a gig, remaining friendly, but distant. It was a very rare connection that she would bother to cultivate once a particular project was over. But the fact that she had invited McPherson back to their flat was a pretty big deal, as that particular privilege was usually strictly reserved for those that his wife considered to be friends, or at least the kind of person she was interested in keeping in touch with once a job had finished.

He watched as she mused over her answer before replying. "Yes. I think so. She's very bright, and she's very interesting – and more to the point, I just _like_ her." She shrugged her shoulders, unable to quantify exactly why she liked the younger woman so much, but accepting it anyway. 

Her husband shifted beneath her, and slipped a caressing hand into her hair. "Right then. Then that's settled." He smirked, as a thought hit him. "We should have her over for dinner and drag Ben along as well."

Anne-Marie laughed that rich dirty chuckle that he loved so much, even as he pulled her head down towards his. "Match making again?" she murmured against his mouth. "Bad idea, Jimmy." He laughed soundlessly against her lips and rolled his eyes, biting her chin gently. "My motives are entirely pure," he murmured against her skin. "Ben needs a decent girl." She smirked and nipped at his bottom lip playfully, tugging at the scruff of his beard with her free hand. "Not _my_ friend, he doesn't," she remonstrated. "God save Kat from the train wreck that is Benedict's love life."

"Heh. We'll see. But just now, Mrs MacAvoy, I'd far rather not talk about Ben's love life." 

She gave him a faux innocent look, even as her free hand slipped from his beard to run caressingly down his torso. "What would you rather talk about?" and then squealed with laughter as he used an ankle stuck between her calves to abruptly twist them over so that she was lying on her back with him cradled in between her thighs. He pushed against her and she giggled, which rapidly turned into a gasp as he kissed her neck and nibbled an earlobe between his teeth. "I would much rather," he breathed into her ear. "Talk about our love life instead." He bit gently down on her neck. "Or perhaps not talk at all." He kissed further down her neck and she arched into the sensation. 

"I could be persuaded to your point of view," she confirmed breathlessly.

"Well then. I think we've probably got about twenty minutes before the wee man comes down here demanding attention, so if you wouldn't mind, darling wife," he paused to nibble at her exposed collar bone. "I would suggest we use the time….productively."

She chuckled and slid her hand underneath his sweater, enjoying the feeling of taut muscle under soft skin while the other hand tangled in his hair. The prep work he was doing for the Scottish play certainly had ancillary benefits, at least for her. "By all means, beloved husband, by all means." And, satisfied she had got the closing word, she kissed him deeply, tongues dancing as the two of them momentarily put all other considerations aside for the far more immediately important one of enjoying each other.

____________________________________________

_Offices of Amanda Carter, London - February 2013_

“So have you had a chance to consider what we discussed?” 

Her patient paused in her ceaseless perambulations around her office and turned her head to fix her with a piercing, sharply intelligent green gaze. For a second Amanda entertained a fancy of what it must be like to be a mouse similarly fixated on by a bird of prey, and then she pushed away the image. Her newest patient was no bird of prey, just a fiercely intelligent, beautiful but slightly lost young woman who had survived a hell of a lot and needed her help to finally heal.

With that in mind she gestured towards the arm chair in front of her, silently encouraging her new patient to take a seat. After a moment's hesitation, the younger woman did so.

She was obviously considering how to respond and Amanda gave her time to collect her thoughts as she frowned. When she spoke, her voice was quiet and contemplative, the soft accent granting a musicality to even the bluntest words.

“I have.”

When she paused again, Amanda gently prompted her. “So, what _do_ you want to get out of this process?”

Her patient frowned again, choosing her words carefully, staring down into her lap as she did so. “I want to know that if I want to, I could have an intimate relationship with a man, and...” she raised her head from her contemplation of her knees to transfix her counsellor with that fierce green eyed stare again. “And I want to know what it is, to _want_ to.” She concluded in a definite tone of voice, the emphasis she put on the words adding a weight that such a simple utterance might not have otherwise had.

Amanda busied herself making a brief note for a second on her records pad and then looked up again to meet her patient's clear eyed gaze. “Right.” She smiled briefly at her newest client. “Those are very solid goals to work towards.” She tapped her pen against the pad in her lap as she considered. “And we will work towards them, together. But you do understand that this will not be an overnight, quick-fix solution?”

The younger woman nodded firmly. “I do,” she acknowledged. “I've had therapy before. I know it takes time.”

Carter nodded in agreement. “Yes, it normally does. But you may find that at some point in the process you may have what is genuinely a revelatory moment.” She smiled softly at the faint surprise written across the face of the woman across from her. “A woman's sexual desire and her sexuality are both fluid and intrinsically linked to every other part of her,” she noted gently. “You've said to me that you feel like there is a pane of glass between you and sexual feeling, that you can imagine it intellectually, but that it doesn't touch any part of you physically or emotionally?”

She waited for her patient's hesitant nod before continuing. “After we've worked together for a while it may be that that glass may thin and perhaps even break. And we won't know whether that process will happen slowly or all at once.” She smiled sympathetically at the slight look of dread on the face of the woman opposite her, and hastened to reassure her. “It will be fine. I promise. Through our work here, by the time that is likely to happen, you will have gained the tools to cope.” Her smile grew a little wider. “And if it happens, that will mean that you will have succeeded in your goals, which is, of course something to aim for!”

Her patient smiled at her, a little hesitantly, but clearly still unconvinced. That was something Amanda was going to have to work on. But first they had to work on the basics. There was a long road ahead of them, but Amanda was determined that they were going to get there together.

“So, let's start at the beginning.” Across from her Kat took a deep breath and sat up straighter in her chair. She could do this. She could. And when she was finished, she wouldn't be broken any more.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The Groucho is one the oldest and probably the most notorious of the media clubs in London - famed for late night debauchery and an eclectic membership list. And the Wannamaker Theatre at the Globe is beautiful, and wonderfully atmospheric, and I would thoroughly recommend a visit if any reader of this is in London over the winter months - please review!_

_The Duchess of Malfi -The Sam Wannamaker Theatre, Shakespeare's Globe, London - January 2014_

“Yes?”

_“Ben.”_

As he answered his phone, Ben instantly recognised the distinctive, deep, south London accented voice of Steve McQueen.

“Steve, my man. How are you?”

_“Good, good. Hey, I'm in town just for tonight, and I was wondering if you wanted to catch up, grab a drink?”_

Ben hesitated. On the one hand it would be great to see Steve, but on the other hand, he was going to be out of town for the next few weeks and he had an appointment tonight that he really didn't want to miss. However, maybe Steve would be okay with that.

“I would love too. Could we make it an early dinner instead, or a late drink? It's just that I have a friend in something just now, and tonight's the only night I can see her as I'm going to be out of the country for the rest of her run.” He hesitated, the idea coming to him. “Unless you want to come too? It's Jacobean theatre, not sure if that's your idea of a good time?”

Steve chuckled deeply. _“You know me, Ben. I'll try anything once. Can you get me a ticket?”_

“Yeah, sure. My publicist can manage it. So, why don't we meet for a bite to eat before hand, then we can grab a drink afterwards?”

_“Sure. What's the play? And who's your friend?”_

“Oh, it's the _Duchess of Malfi,_ by John Webster at the new playhouse at the Globe. The _Sam Wannamaker_ they've called it. It's a replica of a Jacobean playhouse, complete with candlelight and everything.”

_“Huh. Should be interesting. And you didn't say – who's your friend?”_

“Heh,” Ben's voice was amused, ready for Steve to call bullshit. “It's Kat. Katerina McPherson herself herself.”

He sniggered at the puff of surprise on the other end of the line. _“Get **out** of it? The original 'most evasive female star in British theatre' is a mate of yours? You didn't mention **that** on the set of Twelve Years.”_

Ben shrugged, forgetting for a moment that Steve couldn't see him. “We had only met quite recently then. I didn't want to invade her privacy by spreading it around that we knew each other. As we both know,” his tone was wry, and a little dry. “She takes her privacy _very_ seriously.”

_“Yeah, man. That's true enough. So, I think this will be pretty interesting. Has the run had decent reviews?”_

“Stellar. She's probably going to get a few nominations out of it. She's been knocking it out of the ballpark. The run is totally sold out.”

_“Good for her. Okay, however, Cumberbatch - if you are going to drag me along to this, I expect an introduction at the very least.”_

“Yeah, I can probably do that. I'll see if she wants to grab a quick drink post show, but I am warning you, Kat's probably going to be a lot quieter if you're there. She's very shy with strangers and Steve – she's sort of the opposite of touchy-feely.”

Steve chuckled quietly over the phone. _“Warning understood. I'll be on my best behaviour.”_

Ben laughed in response. “God, no – not that! She hasn't done anything to deserve that!”

******

The music stopped, the elegant steps of the _pavane_ freezing the cast in place, flickering candlelight casting shadows and planes on their faces, and then they bowed simultaneously, as the small audience broke into rapturous applause, punctuated by shouts and the occasional whistle. 

Ben applauded as hard as the rest, shifting as he did so in his seat. God, these seats were uncomfortable. Bad as the Domnar, almost. Obviously the Jacobeans weren't too interested in their audience's comfort and the Globe management had taken that on-board. However, the play itself…

He clapped even harder and then stood with the rest of the audience and lowered himself enough to put two fingers up to his mouth and whistle when the object of his attention came forward to take her solo bow; however any noise he made was almost lost in the tumultuous roar of approval as the audience expressed their appreciation for the lead actor's impressive and emotionally wrenching performance. On stage, Kat blinked as though she was being pulled out of a dream by the noise, smiled a little and gave the audience a sweeping curtsey in response to their approbation, before doing her best to blend back into the company. But the audience were having none of her self effacement, and after the second company bow continued to stamp and cheer until she was nudged forward by a grinning Antonious to take a second solo bow, a faint blush rising now in pale cheeks.

She bowed again, straightened a second time, and almost had to duck as someone threw a rose down to her from the Upper Gallery. It was unusual enough to startle her out of her normal professional solemnity, and despite herself she laughed as she bent to pick it up. Clutching it theatrically to the bodice of her dress she gave a final curtsey to the audience, smiled wide and dazzling enough to cause more than a few of the men in the audience (and a number of the women) to sigh and then exited the stage with the rest of the cast, with the still rapturous applause of the Wannamaker's madly enthusiastic small audience still ringing in her ears.

In the Lower Gallery, Ben sat down again with a grin, pleased with Kat's success. He always liked to see a friend do well and Kat had hit every note in the play beautifully, creating a wonderfully dynamic and powerful performance out of a character who Ben had previously see done all too often as somewhat passive and at the mercy of the men in her life. The theatre itself was beautiful, and already wonderfully atmospheric, and refreshingly, neither Steve, nor himself had been bothered by anyone in the audience, even though a few glances had made it clear that at least some people had twigged who they were. 

He realised that he had almost forgotten his companion in his enthusiasm at seeing Kat take her well deserved bows and glanced beside him to see Steve contemplating the now empty stage, a characteristically thoughtful expression on his face. 

"So, I know this is a loaded question, but what did you think? And if you really didn't like it, it's probably best you tell me now and then think up some polite platitudes before we go and see Kat, because I thought she was wonderful."

Steve shifted in his seat, almost visually shaking off his distraction. "I thought it was….excellent. And she was remarkable. In fact, it's given me an idea…"

Ben regarded him with a raised eyebrow. "Oh? Well, hold that thought. You can tell me over a drink. But I want to pop in and say hello to Kat first."

It took a little longer for Ben to persuade the front of house staff that Kat would be happy to see him than he expected, and by the time the staff had checked with her and they were permitted to make it backstage she had changed into her street clothes and was engaged in taking off her make up, her thick dark hair pulled back into a messy bun. But when he knocked on the partially closed door of her dressing room and eeled around the door-frame at her acknowledgement, she dropped what she was doing and spun round in her seat to face him, her smile small, but genuine.

"Ben!"

"Kat, darling."

He grinned back at her and, sensitive to her discomfort with physical contact, just momentarily swooped in close enough to brush the briefest of kisses across one high boned cheek before (politely ignoring her tiny flinch) shifting back a bit so that he stood outside of her personal space. 

"Or should I say, Your Grace…." he swept a low, overly theatrical bow and her smile widened, amused by his ridiculousness. 

"Hhhmm. Only if you want me to call you Smaug, your Highness. Or perhaps, Khan."

He chuckled. "Hah. No! Fair point. But seriously, darling, that was a wonderful performance. Truly excellent. Congratulations are in order."

She looked a little embarrassed, colour rising in her cheeks as she frowned and tried to wave away his compliment. "It's very much a team effort, as you know yourself, Ben. And Dom's a wonderful Director and the rest of the cast are just excellent."

He shrugged. "All true – and it's a wonderful production. But the compliment was for _you_ , dear Kat. _Your_ performance – which was stellar. So for once, just give in and accept praise where it's due."

He held her gaze for a moment to make his point, not releasing her until she gave him a tiny nod of acknowledgement, despite her discomfort. Then, suddenly remembering, he slapped his forehead. "God, I'm an idiot. Sorry…I brought someone along to meet you, and I've left him lurking in the corridor! Sorry…Kat, you don’t mind do you?"

"No…." she was a little unsure, and it came across in her voice and the slightly doubtful look she was giving him, as it had been a long day, with two shows and she was back in tomorrow as well. But she trusted him (at least as much as she trusted most of her male friends) and so she was willing to be polite if Ben wanted to introduce her to someone.

"Right, excellent." He slipped his head around the door frame. "Steve, mate, sorry about that, I got distracted. Come on in. There's someone I'd like you to meet."

Kat stood up from her chair instinctively, as the space behind Ben's tall but slim frame was suddenly filled with the presence of a considerably shorter but more bulky, black-British man. Massive shoulders like a rugby player were topped by a bald head, perched on top of seemingly no neck at all. It was as if he took up all the space in the room, and her fight/flight instincts, never too far from the surface, clicked in and it took all her will power, and the knowledge that Ben would never bring anyone to meet her that he thought she might have issues with, not to step back. But then she raised her chin to look at her visitor's face, rather than his neck, and she found herself looking into a pair of the most calm and intelligent brown eyes that she had ever seen. They seemed to look right into her in exchange, and she found her curiosity engaged before her fear had a chance to get its habitual hooks in. For a second the two of them just stood and looked at each other, taking each other's measure, and then the new comer smiled, a wonderful, full lipped grin, full of warmth and humour and rather unexpectedly, she found herself smiling back. And it was a genuine smile, not the politely careful and professional one she normally donned to meet with strangers.

Ben had been watching this silent byplay with a certain amusement, but once Steve smiled and Kat, rather surprisingly, smiled back, he thought it was about time he fulfilled his promise to Steve before he got distracted again.

"Kat, Steve." They both glanced at him, startled out of their mutual absorption and Ben bit back a grin at the identical expressions of faint perplexity on their faces. 

"I did promise you a proper introduction, Steve. So here we go," he took a deep breath. "Katerina Alexandra McPherson, please may I introduce Steven Rodney McQueen. And now I consider my social obligations complete, as I'm sure you both know what the other does."

Kat rolled her eyes at his theatricality and then inclined her head in greeting. "Mr McQueen." To Steve's surprise her voice was soft and deep for a woman's, with a clear Scottish lilt, similar to Michael's in its musicality but at the same time subtly different. "It's lovely to meet you, I love your work. I especially loved _Western Deep_ , and I may, apologies for this, have a rather illicit copy of _Deadpan_ at home in my film library."

Steve's eyebrows had started rising as she spoke, and continued to rise as she referenced some of the earliest work he had ever done in film, even going back almost to his Turner Prize days. He was used to people complimenting him on his more recent films, but very few people in the film world would ever think to mention the material he used to make back in the early noughties. And especially not actors, who did have a tendency to be somewhat short-sighted as to medium. He met her clear green gaze which was full of nothing but sincerity, and caught sight of Benedict out of his peripheral vision, looking amusedly smug.

"Thank you. And please call me Steve." His lips quirked. "Not many people tend to remember that far back, these days. People seem to forget that I did anything before about 2007. Or that I still do art. But the same to you. That was a wonderful performance tonight, and I caught that biopic of Catherine the Great you did last year for the BBC as well. That was great and a bit of a relief when I was working on _12 Years_. It took my mind off the film when I desperately needed not to think about the project for a bit to maintain my own sanity. My wife thanks you as well, for that!"

He smiled at her again and reached a hand out for her to shake. After an almost imperceptible pause she moved to meet him and smiled as her long fingers were enfolded by his massive ones. Her grip was strong for a woman, and there were unexpected calluses on her hands, a fact that Steve inserted into his mental file on this woman, who was already turning out to be considerably more intriguing than he had expected.

Ben glanced between the two of them, pleased, and a little surprised by the easy amity he could see developing between his two friends. "Kat, Steve and I are just going to grab a quick drink. Any chance you would like to join us?"

Kat hesitated. It had been a long day, and she had another show tomorrow, but it had been a while since she had the chance to catch up with Ben, and with their competing schedules, who knew when she might have another opportunity in the near future? Plus, Steve seemed like an interesting man, and she had wondered what it would be like to talk to him about his move from art to film for a very long time, so it would be stupid to turn down the opportunity now, especially with Ben there to diffuse any awkwardness she might suffer from. Mind made up, she smiled at Ben. "That would be lovely, but it might have to be quite quick, as I've a show tomorrow."

"On a Sunday?" Steve enquired, a little surprised. 

"Yes." She grimaced slightly. "It's the Globe. Mad scheduling and a certain level of anarchy are to be expected as standard," she noted astringently but affectionately, and Ben snorted. 

"There is a reason, Kat, why I don't work here."

"Hah! The reason you don't do the Globe is that you hate long runs unless they are at the National, and think of what actually having to perform outdoors in the British weather would do to your hair?! God forbid..."

Ben rolled his eyes at her mockery (which had an element of truth in it) and Steve chuckled at the accuracy of her rejoinder as well. It was obvious she knew his rather aesthete friend quite well.

"Right then. Drink!"

Kat's lips twitched at Ben's rather obvious attempt to change the subject. "Fine. Just give me five minutes to finish here and grab my coat."

________________________________________________________

 

Three hours later, what was meant to be a quick drink had turned into an epic discussion session, during the majority of which Ben could only sit back and watch in honest bemusement as Steve somehow managed to get Kat, possibly one of the most reserved people in company Ben knew in the arts world, to open up and become almost voluble in her intensity. 

The tipping point of the conversation had erupted about twenty minutes after they had reached Ben's suggested venue for a "quick drink" at the Groucho Club, where he was a member. Kat and Steve had been engaged in polite, slightly restrained, conversation about Steve's work that had led to the Turner Prize, something that to Ben's surprise, she was unexpectedly knowledgeable about. Then the conversation had briefly strayed into some of Kat's older stage work, especially _Lysistrata_ , which she had been part of a few years earlier and from there into a hammer and tongs argument between Kat and Ben regarding the relevant advantages and disadvantages of theatre as opposed to filmed mediums, which Steve had regarded with amusement, occasionally adding a brief contribution. The two of them were still at it when Steve suddenly commented to Kat, apropos of nothing -

"You've got some interesting calluses on your palms. Martial arts?" 

The randomness of his observation pulled Kat's attention away from her discussion with Ben and she titled her head at her newest acquaintance, intrigued by his attention to detail. Very few people had ever noticed that about her.

"Yes…." she confirmed slowly, quizzically amused by his observation. 

"What kind?" 

"Jeet Kune Do from when I was very little, and then the Krav. Krav Maga," she clarified, at the looks of enquiry she was receiving from both men.

"Seriously?" She could tell that Steve meant whether she studied seriously, and she nodded in conformation, a little cooler than she had been a minute earlier. She wasn't a dabbler. It wasn't in her nature, and she wasn't sure she liked that she might have given the impression that she was.

"Since I was six. And pretty much every day since. Although there were a few years in my early teens when...circumstances – required that I take a brief break. Is that serious enough for you?"

Kat's tone was cool, and a little arch, as was the look that she gave McQueen, and Ben inwardly winced. Steve's enquiry had obviously put her hackles up a little, although she had answered his query with far more personal information than Ben had ever heard her divulge to an almost stranger before. He risked a glance over at Steve, who listened to her slightly scathing reply solidly, his broad face impassive. 

For a moment that atmosphere at the table sat on tenterhooks, and then Steve smiled and leaned forward, crossing his massive arms on the table. "Just about," he observed mildly. At her bristle, he just smiled again, and continued, unabated. "In that case I want to pick your brains about something. What do you think about the depiction of women and violence on film and TV?"

Kat cocked her head as she tried to parse exactly what he was getting at. 

"Violence done _to_ women on screen, on violence done _by_ women on screen? And you mean the sort of faintly-porn fighting violence that turns up in B-movies, or a genuine depiction of what a woman is capable of in relation to violence and what would drive her to act that way?"

Steve's smile broadened even further and he leaned into the table, deep voice very quiet amongst the noise of the bar. "I'm talking about rage. Female rage that leads to violence, and the reasons and motivations behind it. And I have the feeling that's something you might have some definite opinions about. Care to share?"

For a second the two of them just looked at each other, green eyes boring into brown, looking for some signs of flippancy, or condescension. But all she could see was sincerity, and genuine interest and Kat felt that part of her that she normally kept hidden, that part of her that was rage, and grief and snarling aggression prick up its metaphorical ears in interest. Maybe….

"I might," she responded coolly. "If you're prepared to listen. It's not something most men want to discuss."

Steve's smile became a sharp edged grin. "I'm not most men."

She smiled back, her own grin sharp around the edges in a way that caused Ben to blink in consternation. This woman, simmering with violence so clearly just under the skin, was not the same woman who he had met on _The Hobbit_ set, or the woman he had gone to the theatre with, or had dinners and drinks with on various occasions over the last eighteen months. That woman, with her calm and her reserve, and her biting wit, was like skin over bone and now he had the feeling that he was finally seeing the bone underneath. And he had no clue whether which or both of the Kats he had seen was the real Kat McPherson.

She looked at Steve again, gauging his sincerity for the final time. "Okay, then." She smiled again, and there was very little of humour in it. "Let's talk about rage."

Steve met her gaze and smiled again, broad and sincere. "Lets."

______________________________________________________________

 

It was Ben who had to point out to both of them that it was 2am and that the Groucho was closing around them. When he did, they both startled, looking at him with almost identical confused expressions as he pulled them out of the fugue they had descended into. Steve glanced over the table which was now a mess of scribbled sheets of paper, discarded tea and coffee cups and the remnants of sandwiches which they had ordered around half past midnight, and then across at his co-conspirator, who was also looking at the assorted debris with an air of faint confusion. God, that woman had a mind like a steel trap. The only other times he could remember taking off like this had been with Abi Morgan, when they met for the first time and ended up spending three hours talking, a conversation that eventually led to the genesis of _Shame_ , and when his wife Bianca had pressed her copy of Solomon Northup's book into his hands and insisted that he read it. And like both previous times, he suddenly felt innervated and full to overflowing with possibilities. 

Kat eyed Steve over the table almost apprehensively. She was aware of Ben hovering beside them both, looking rather shell shocked, both by how late it was and by the intensity of what he had just witnessed and had been peripherally involved in, but the majority of her attention was fixed on McQueen, who was eyeing her back. She hadn't meant to reveal so much of herself to him, but when he had asked, and probed and _pushed_ , suddenly she was realised she was sick of having to always conceal exactly how much this topic meant to her, of always pretending to be detached and unaffected and not let slip how very close to home the conversation was straying. And so she had opened her mouth, and her brain, her Oxford educated, logical, scientifically minded brain - that curse and gift of hers that simultaneously allowed her to remember her lines effortlessly but also plagued her by never letting her forget anything (not every touch, or every blow, or every hurt…) had taken over -and it had all spilled out.

Steve glanced down at his notes. It was all there, statistics re domestic violence against women, conviction percentages for the UK and various countries in Europe and states in the US, reference books she recommended, citations for academic studies she had digested, cases she had read, news stories that had stuck in her head, personal anecdotes that she recalled from her summers at university of working as a volunteer with UNHCR and her continued involvement with women's refugee services since then, a paean of abuse and resistance in a chorus of women's voices. And then she had started talking about rage. Rage and violence and the perpetration of violence on and to women, and the cultural and societal costs of it. She talked about the desire to fight back and the barriers against it, and the societal conditioning that convinced so many women of their victim-hood and how harshly the legal systems in so many countries treated those that did fight back in the best way they knew how. And he listened intently and interjected, and queried and pushed, and wrote down what she told him in an impassioned flood, his admiration for the laser sharp acuity of her intellect growing with every hour. And that germ of an idea he had had, only a few hours ago, when he had seen her on stage, and felt that ocean of rage she was carrying under her stage persona reach out and touch him like a hand, started to grow inside him. He could do something with this. He could make something with this, just as he had with Abi and with Solomon's book beforehand. But more to the point, he eyed the woman sprawled back in her chair, regarding him steadily; he could do something with _her_. This could work, and if it did, he might finally have someone who could actually match Michael one on one on screen. And think of the possibilities _that_ might open up.

But - small steps. First, he had to see if she would be interested in continuing their discussion. And if he was going to be working with this woman, however sporadically, over the next few years (because his projects usually took at least that time to germinate) he'd better introduce her to Bianca, if only for the sake of his own domestic harmony. 

Aware of the looks they were starting to get from the few staff left in the bar, he started gathering up the mess of papers to take with him and it was only a few minutes before they were standing outside in Dean Street, shivering in the cold January air. He considered how to broach the subject for a second, but Steve was a straightforward bloke and he didn't see any reason to beat about the bush.

"Kat." She turned at his call from where she had been peering up and down the road, searching in vain for a black cab with Ben.

"Hmm?"

"Can I get your contact details? I think there might be something worth investigating in what we discussed tonight. A possible project. I'd like to explore it further with you, if you're interested."

She looked up at him, slightly taken aback. Absolutely, they had had a fascinating discussion, and she had relished the chance to actually say what she thought for once, without censoring herself –but she hadn't expected that he would want to take it any further. But if he was genuinely interested in looking at the issue in more depth….well, she would be an idiot to refuse to explore the possibility.

"Of course." She fished her mobile out of her pocket. "What's your number? I'll send you a text with my email as well."

By the time Steve's phone had chimed to acknowledge her message, Ben had managed to flag down a black cab. After briefly quizzing Ben as to when he would be about so they could catch up again, and exchanging a brief hug with his friend he turned to Kat, who was hovering slightly in the background, cold hands tucked up under her armpits. He held out a hand again, and after a tiny moment's hesitation she clasped it in her chilled fingers, looking up into his smiling face. 

"Ms McPherson. I can tell you, it's genuinely been a rare pleasure. I'll be in touch, and I hope we can meet up soon to thrash this out. You should come to Amsterdam for the weekend sometime, and meet my wife. I think Bianca would like you."

She smiled at him, touched by his sincerity despite her customary cynicism. "I would like that. Let me know when you have availability and I'll see what I can work out. Oh – and good luck with all the award shows! I'll be crossing my fingers for you."

He chuckled. "Thanks, I'll add your prayers to my wife's! I hope that I'll see you soon, then." And with a last smile to both of them and a squeeze of her fingers he was gone.

Ben stared off after the cab for a minute and then looked down at Kat, who was looking quietly thoughtful, hands tucked up under her armpits again.

"So," he teased. "Glad you came out for a drink then?" 

She laughed in response and punched him gently in the arm. "I should be in bed now – I'm not going to be thanking you tomorrow when I'm too knackered to remember my lines."

He shook his head firmly. "Never going to happen." He glanced around absent-mindedly, clocking the rather eclectic passers by made up the typical Soho night-life at this time on a Saturday night. 

"You up for a nightcap?" he tried, but before he had even finished speaking she was shaking her head and laughing at him. 

"No! Some of us have to actually get up in the morning! But I'm sorry you had to sit and listen to the two of us go off on a mad tangent. That can't have been what you expected when you invited me out."

He shrugged good-naturedly and peered down at her, hands tucked into the pockets of his great coat, hair a tousled cap of curls and green-blue eyes crinkling at the edges as he smiled. "It was fine. It was actually pretty interesting. I've never heard you talk that much before!" He grinned at her laughter. "I feel very enlightened," he intoned solemnly. 

She punched him gently in the arm again, ignoring his fake wince of pain. "Swine! But fair enough, it wasn't exactly what you signed up for. Let me make it up to you. Dinner when we are both in town? And I promise I won't discuss anything more serious than the Paris collections and industry gossip!"

He chuckled low in his chest and exaggeratedly shuddered. "God forbid! That's not necessary – I'm sure we can find a happy medium. But seriously, Kat, I'm really glad you got on so well with Steve. He's a great guy to know, and I think he really wants to work with you. That could be a really good thing for your career going forward."

Kat glanced down the road where Steve's taxi had disappeared. "I know," she acknowledged softly. "I didn't expect to like him as much as I did. I don't really care about the networking aspect of it, you know that Ben," he nodded his agreement. "But I loved the way he really seemed interested in what I had to say." She smiled softly. "We female actors are all too often meant to sit and look pretty, even these days. It was….nice….to talk to someone in the business who actually wanted me to use my _brain_ , as opposed to my body." He smiled ruefully in acknowledgement at the accuracy of her comment. Sometimes, he thought it was still easier to be a woman in their industry if you were fundamentally not that bright. The cleverer a woman was, the more often she had to conceal it, even these days. And Kat was very clever indeed, which had undoubtedly caused her considerable frustration in the past.

He nudged her gently in a coat covered side with his elbow. "Well, hopefully something good will come of it. And if you win an Oscar as a result, I expect to be thanked in your acceptance speech!"

She laughed again, and reached up to press the briefest of kisses on his cheek, hand on his arm to aid her balance before dropping down and moving away from him towards the road, waving down an approaching black cab as she did so. 

"I promise!" 

He smiled at her agreement and called after her. "And dinner, wench! As soon as we are both back in town!"

The cab pulled to a stop and she paused to briefly speak to the cabbie before opening the back door, turning back to him as she did so. "Absolutely. Send me your dates once you get them and good luck with the new project!"

"You too!"

And then the door slammed and she was gone, with a brief wave through the window to him as the cab pulled away from the kerb. 

Silence reigned, only broken by the quasi distant movement of late night/early morning traffic in the rest of Soho. Ben tipped back his head to examine the clear, frosty sky contemplatively, considering the events of the night. It had certainly been different than what he expected, but he had a funny feeling that he may have been the unwitting instigator of something quite significant. His mind conjured up the mutual intensity that he had witnessed between his two friends, that intellectual rapport that had so suddenly sparked into life. "I think," he mused, "that this might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship." 

And with his brief homage to old Hollywood complete, he wandered off to make his own way home.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Please review!_

_House of Tom Hiddleston, North London - January 2014_

 

_"Thomas."_

"Mum? I didn't expect to hear from you today. Is everything all right?"

His mother laughed warmly down the phone at his typical over reaction, and all of Tom's tension instantly drained out of him at the familiarity of that loving, amused chuckle. 

_"Everything's fine, darling."_

He flopped back down again onto the cushions of his couch, on which he had been enjoying a sneaky late-Sunday morning nap before his Mum's call had disrupted his peace and quiet.

"Then, to what do I owe the honour of this call?"

 _"Do I need a reason to call my favourite son on a Sunday morning?"_ Her tone was warm and affectionately teasing and Tom's eyes narrowed in automatic, amused suspicion.

"I am your _only_ son, Mum. At least that I know about – and considering I'm seeing you for dinner after the show on Wednesday forgive my scepticism that you were just suddenly overwhelmed by an outpouring of maternal affection."

She laughed again and Tom grinned into the phone, totally relaxed now. Whatever his mother wanted, it couldn't be that bad, especially if she was so amused by it.

_"Darling, darling boy….you have such a suspicious mind. I do wonder sometimes where you get that from."_

"Dad," he answered automatically, and they both chuckled. "But seriously, Mum, is there something you want to talk about?"

He could almost feel her smile down the phone at his attempt to chivvy her into making some kind of point. _"Impatient,"_ ; she chided warmly, the smile still evident in her voice and he rolled his eyes at her.

"You know it! So….?" 

_"Well, actually, yes. There was something I wanted to discuss. Just a small favour…."_ she paused for a moment, and then continued, spurred on by the expectant silence on the other end of the phone. _"I was meant to be going to the new theatre at the Globe tonight, you know, the indoor one, to see The Duchess of Malfi with Emma, but some thing's come up and she can't make it. So I was wondering whether you would be available to squire your poor, aged mother to the theatre tonight."_

Tom made a loud, rather rude, scoffing noise down the phone. "Poor, aged mother, my backside! And can't any of your friends go with you instead?" 

_"Unfortunately not. It's too short notice. And anyway, darling - I want to go with **you.** "_

"Muummm…" he grumbled, in a way that he was willing to admit was possibly too adolescent for a man in his thirties. "Just now, I spend six nights a week in a theatre. I was quite looking forward to not spending my one night off there as well!" 

_"Well, yes, darling,"_ she responded, slightly more acerbically. _"I know. But in a few weeks you will be jetting off to Toronto or wherever, to film Crimson Peak, and then after that there will undoubtedly be something else that will keep you on the move for the conceivable future, and so, and please excuse the use of maternal guilt, is it so wrong for me to want to spend some time with my son before you disappear again?"_

Tom rolled his eyes and conceded the point. He was going to be spending an awful lot of time away in the next few months, and although he might be able to arrange for his Mum and sisters to pop out to see him at some point, he would be horrendously busy even if they did visit, so he wouldn't actually be able to spend much time with them at all. And one of the really nice things about doing _Coriolanus_ in London had been the opportunity to catch up with his family, and spend some decent time with them, so he should probably stock pile that while he could. 

"Fine, fine. Okay then, Mum. As always, your maternal ninja wins the day. But can't we just get dinner instead?" he wheedled. "You can come over, and I can cook." 

She managed to sound both faintly smug and dryly amused when she replied. _"Sweetheart. You have many talents, but we both know that cooking any kind of decent meal is certainly not one of them. And no, we can't, because I've been looking forward to this production for quite some time, the run is completely sold out, and I'm desperately curious as to see what the Wannamaker looks like inside now it's finished. So we're going. It will be good for you – getting to watch something you aren't involved in for once."_ Her voice was definitely amused now. _"And if you come over early enough to Emma's, I'll even cook you dinner as well."_

Tom sighed, amused and resigned at the same time. "All right, you win, as always! I'll be over at about five. That should give us enough time to eat and get down to the Globe. Seven thirty start?" 

_"I believe so, but I'll check. And as a reward to good behaviour I'll even make you some shepherd's pie!"_

He sniggered down the phone at her. They both knew that she didn't have to bribe him to come out with her, but it was always amusing to pretend – and he did love shepherd's pie. 

"Okay, Mum. I'll see you later." 

_"You too, darling. Bye!"_

Dinner had been as delicious as his Mum's Shepherd's pie always was and the new theatre at the _Wannamaker_ was just as lovely as his Mum had hoped that it would be from the pictures she had seen. The exposed golden tones of the wood glowed in the soft light creeping in from the main lobby, and the space was enclosed and intimate, already redolent with the kind of atmosphere that it often took decades to create in other, more modern, theatres. Although, as he shifted on the narrow wooden bench seat and vainly tried to curl his long legs into a more comfortable position, it was clear that the architects hadn't made many concessions to the fact that people were, on the whole, taller than they were in 17th century England when they had designed the seating. 

He couldn't help compare it to the Domnar, where he had spent so much time over the last few years. Except in the matter of size, it was almost a polar opposite. The Domnar oozed its semi-industrial past with every metal rail and exposed brick, while this space had been deliberately created from scratch as a pure theatre space and one that echoed, as much as possible, early theatres of the Jacobean period. And while it was, in some ways a more limited space than the Domnar's empty room and lack of a formal "stage", on the other hand it would offer far more appropriate and evocative staging possibilities for the kind of work the Globe specialised in. Plus, it would be a great space for small musical performances and the other shows they no doubt intended to put on. He craned his neck back to examine the painted ceiling and then considered the stage with a professional's eye. It would be an interesting space to play in. He wouldn't be averse to giving it a go at some point. 

While he was musing, the last of the audience had filed in, and the ushers had drawn thick painted curtains over the entrances. He noted with interest as the theatre dimmed to a soft twilight that some of the wooden shutters had been closed over the internal windows, but before he could examine that in any detail soft instrumental music started to waft down from the musicians in period costume who had slipped in to the minstrels gallery, and he settled down to absorb the play as the cast started to file on stage. 

It was an excellent production and he was soon wholly caught up in it, only peripherally conscious of his mother sitting beside him, or of the other members of the audience. The candlelight lit everything in a warm, flickering glow and created a hushed, strangely intimate atmosphere where even a cough felt like an intrusion. The cast were all excellent, but it wasn't until the Duchess glided onto the stage that he really became sucked in. She was wonderful, wholly believable, a touching mixture of kindness and an inbred nobility, with flashes of fire and passion underneath. He found himself emphasising with her predicament, and his heart ached a little for her understanding of what the consequences of her love would be and her defiance in the face of fate. Every word of heightened language that fell from her lips in her low, rich voice rang as simple and true as though she was speaking in modern vernacular directly to him, and he found himself leaning forward to listen almost against his will. His artist's eyes appreciated the simplicity of the staging and the beauty of the costuming, but his gaze was drawn inescapably to the woman playing the Duchess, the sweep of dark hair, those huge eyes in her pale face, the sharp edges of her cheekbones and her slim fingers as she gesticulated for emphasis. She was lovely, and the soft light gilding her face only made her lovelier still. When she and Antonious flirted and bantered together he felt an uncharacteristic stab of envy for the actor that was privileged to play opposite her every night, and when they briefly kissed he couldn't help but wonder what those cupid bow lips would taste like under his own. 

When the interval came he found he had to make a conscious effort to pull himself back to the present. His Mum was on fine form, enjoying the performance immensely, analysing the space with the eye of the stage manager she had been and commenting on the plot so far. He managed to purvey them both drinks and they huddled together at the far side of the café, away from most of the crowd. He still gathered a few knowing looks, but no-one bothered them, which he thought was probably a result of the fact that most of the audience for a Jacobean play on a cold Sunday night in January were likely to be Londoners, as opposed to tourists. And Londoners were notoriously hard to impress.

If the first half had entranced him, the second half wrecked him. The Duchess in prison was less cage bird singing than eagle thrashing against the bars. Her disgust with her brother was visceral and her pain when convinced of the death of her husband and her children was gut-wrenching. Her voice when singing was rich and sweet and achingly sad, enough so that he had to swallow against the grief in it. As the plot careered inevitably towards her execution a strange feeling of fatalism seemed to hang over the now silent theatre. He couldn't help but be curious about how she would chose to play the death scene. He had seen it done in various ways before, in resignation, in submission or in physical resistance. But in the event, she chose none of those. Instead she was a ball of pain and rage, an ocean of anger buoying up a fine veneer of contempt and icy control. While her maid shrieked and struggled against her executioners, she was calm, but it was the calm of a woman who had gone past grief and fury and come out the other side. And when she quietly declared, _"I am the Duchess of Malfi, still,_ " the force was enough to freeze the entire theatre for a moment, the candlelight shadowing her face and highlighting the silent tears of rage that were pouring down the actress's face. 

The actual strangling was done with her back to the audience but the rough physicality of it was such that he had to turn his head away for a moment and swallow and when the cords were cut and she fell to the floor, the cascade of her hair falling around her face, he felt it in the pit of his stomach like someone had punched him. 

The rest of the play passed by in an almost dreamlike fashion, caught up as he still was in that last moment of her death and when the cast finally took their bows he almost had to shake himself out of the reverie he had fallen into. The applause was thunderous and well deserved and when she came forward to take her solo bow, from which she elegantly segued into a full court curtsey it escalated into shouts and whistles until the solemnity of her face finally broke into a gorgeous smile, brilliant and dazzling. _God_ , she was lovely. Alongside the rest of the audience he kept up the applause until the cast came back on stage for a second curtain call, and when she was pushed forward for her second, solo bow he found himself on his feet with the rest of the audience, stamping enthusiastically against the wooden floorboards, and whistling his appreciation. To the audience's vocal delight they were rewarded for their ebullience with another glowing smile and then she disappeared off stage with the rest of her people. 

He stood for a moment, staring after where he had last seen the straight line of her departing back, caught by the memory of that glittering smile and ignoring the activity around him as people gathered up their belongings and made their way out of the theatre. It wasn't until his Mum started pulling together her stuff that he came back to the present and looked down to where she was shifting around, almost glowing with pleasure. "Well," she commented, pleased. "I thought that was wonderful." She glanced up at him, her face alight with what she had just witnessed. "What did you think?" 

He smiled down at her. "I thought it was very good." He looked down at her expectantly raised eyebrow and grinned, and then dutifully repeated. "Thank you for inviting me, Mum. And yes, you were right as always, it was a good idea for me to see someone else on the stage for once."

She smiled back and patted him briefly on the arm. "I'm always right, Thomas my lad. Make sure you remember _that_ when I am in my dotage." 

He laughed quietly at the idea that his indomitable mother would ever allow herself to fall in to an incapable state and she smiled back up at him. "Yes Mum." 

She bustled about gathering up her bag and picked up the program as well, absent-mindedly leafing through it as they made their way to the long queue for the cloakroom and waited in line to collect their coats. "And the lead actress was wonderful! Do you know her, Tom?" 

He shook his head. "I think I know who she is, but I don't know her." Not that he wouldn't like to, but that would be a disastrous admission to make to his Mother, whose one complaint about him hinged about his lack of a steady girlfriend, even when he explained repeatedly to her that his currently nomadic lifestyle wasn't compatible with a committed relationship. 

"Hhmm, well, lets see." She flicked through to the cast list. "Antonius, the Duchess…ah…Katerina McPherson. Oh, I know that name…how do I know that name? Oh, that's right! She was Catherine in that rather good three part biopic of Catherine the Great that the BBC screened last year. Let's see what else she's done." She flicked over to the Cast Bios, and despite his best intentions he found himself reading over her shoulder. 

McPherson's head shot was stark and face forward and the black and white shot brought her sharp boned beauty into full effect, her eyes huge and wary in her face. He found himself captured by the look in her eyes while his Mum busily perused the bio underneath. "Hhmm. Oh - she's done rather a lot. Including _Richard II_ at the Domnar – she was Catherine, obviously." She raised an impressed eyebrow. "Quite a few awards as well. And she went to Central I see. Graduated from the MA not that long after you graduated from RADA! Well, only about five years." She cast an enquiring look up at him. "Are you sure you don't know her? I mean, you are always telling me how incestuous the acting community is in London, so it's strange you haven't bumped into her." 

He shook his head. "I don't Mum, really. Now you mention the name, of course I know _of_ her, but I don’t think she socialises in the same circles I do. In fact, I do remember someone mentioning that she doesn't really socialise in acting circles at all." 

"Pity. She's a wonderfully talented girl. And probably very bright – look - she went to Oxford before she was at Central." She cast an amused look up at him, a hint of laughter dancing in her eyes. "And she is _very_ pretty." 

He looked back down at her, and rolled his eyes at her less than subtle hinting. "Yes. She is very talented, and yes," he sighed. "She isn't just pretty, she's beautiful. Stunning actually." 

"Just your type in fact." She pointed out, laughing silently at him. 

He closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head in despair. "Subtle, Mother. Very subtle. But as I have said before – I really don't have the time to get involved in any form of a relationship just now. Plus, she doesn't know me from Adam." 

"So, you wouldn't be interested in persuading the staff to let us backstage so I can tell her how wonderful she was?" his mother enquired archly, biting her tongue on her evident amusement.

He mock glared at her. "No, Mother. People generally don't appreciate total strangers barging into their dressing rooms post shows. I know _I_ certainly don't." 

His mother shrugged, "Well, you wouldn't be a _total_ stranger, darling. I mean, you are quite high profile these days, so I'm sure she would know who you are." 

He bit back a sigh and gave her a hard stare, laced with amusement. "I'm still a total stranger, even if she might technically know who I am. So, no, Mother. That's _really_ not done. And so I am not. Doing. It!" 

They locked glances for a moment; both amused by the other, and then simultaneously broke into soft laughter at the ridiculousness of their stare off. "Well," his mother commented, smiling. "It was worth a shot." She patted his arm again, affectionately. "I'll get you set up eventually, my son. See if I don't." 

He gave her the required sceptical eyebrow and she laughed at him as they reached the front of the queue and then she dropped the subject. But despite his protestations to his mother, the memory of that pale face with those huge, wary eyes haunted him for a lot longer than he would have liked. He even found himself looking her up on IMdb more than a few times over the next few days, until he made a conscious decision not to be an internet stalker and resolutely shoved the memory of that finely boned visage streaked with tears in the candlelight to the back of his mind, from which it only surfaced when he was very tired, or sometimes in strange dreams from which he woke confused, and a more than a little turned on. 

\----------------------------------------------------------- 

_Counselling office of Amanda Carter –West London - February 2014_

“So it's been a year now.” 

Kat turned back from her usual amble around Amanda's cosy office to fix the woman who had become not just a therapist, but a friend over the last year, with a curious look. 

“It has,” she acknowledged. 

Amanda gestured for her to sit, her habitual pen flicking back and forth between her fingers like a metronome. “So, in the interests of assessing your progress, how do you feel it has gone so far?” 

Kat curled down into the familiar armchair, leaning her chin on one hand propped up on the arm and considered. “I think...” she hesitated, then continued with more certainty, “I think it's going well, or at least as well as I could expect.” 

Amanda smiled warmly at her. “I agree. I think you're making good progress. Not particularly fast, as we discussed, but steady. And you've already managed to make significant breakthroughs in understanding your own sexuality." 

Kat blushed slightly, but held Amanda's gaze, nodding to acknowledge the point. Her therapist smiled at her and then looked down to consult her notes. 

“So, I want you to continue with the sensate touch exercises we discussed. I also want you to start going to this massage therapist,” she handed over a card with contact details, “at least twice a month. Julie specialises in Swedish, sports and therapeutic massage. She's completely accredited and very professional.” She glanced up at Kat who looked slightly sceptical and chuckled. “No - this is not specifically a sex thing!” 

“I didn't say anything!” Kat protested. 

“You didn't need to, dear. You have a very expressive face! No, this is just an extension of the touch therapy, but on a more detached and platonic level, while introducing another person into your physical space. We've established that you identify as primarily and majority heterosexual, but we also know that women are far less likely to trigger flashbacks for you or to cause you to emotionally detach from yourself. Fundamentally, you are far more relaxed around women, so I want you to get used to the concept of just being touched by someone else who isn't a close friend on a therapeutic level. And regular massage with Julie will help with that, plus she's a great masseur. After a session with her, your muscles will be singing her praises.” Kat couldn't help but smile at that. 

Amanda smiled back. “And later on, I'll be asking Julie to teach you how to do some basic massage yourself. You'll have to find a friend to bring along as a subject; does anyone spring immediately to mind?” 

The corners of Kat's mouth twitched up in wry amusement. “Yes. Eils. One of my house mates. She'll be very entertained by the whole process." 

“Excellent.” 

Kat sat up straight in her arm chair as she remembered what she meant to remind Amanda of. 

“Oh, did I mention to you that I'll be in the States for the next few months? I can't remember.” 

“You did.” Amanda confirmed. “But that's fine -we can arrange to continue our sessions by Skpe and I have a few names I can recommend for reputable massage therapists in New York.” She smiled brightly at her client. “Don't worry. We're not stopping now.” 

Biting her lip, Kat nodded her agreement. Absolutely she wasn't stopping now. Not when she was finally making progress. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _For those who aren't aware, David Bailey is one the UK's most successful fashion and art photographers of the past fifty years, and is responsible for some genuinely iconic images, as well as being a talented photo-historian of London's East End and various other, more far flung locations. He was also notorious in the Sixties and Seventies for having an ever revolving door of extremely glamorous girlfriends, wives and female companions._

_Studio of David Bailey, Clerkenwell, East London - February 2014_

"Right, Fassbender. That's you done."

"Really?! That was bloody fast."

Bailey just smirked at Michael's incredulous tone. "If you'd been doing this as long as I have, mate, you'd have it down to a bit of an art and a science as well. I don't fuck around, kid. Don't see the point in it. If I can get the shot I want fast," he shrugged, "there's no point in keeping fuckin' going, is there?"

Mike nodded, as he conceded the point. It was actually pretty refreshing, to be honest. Bailey was so no nonsense, so very clear about what he wanted, that being shot by him was very like working with Steve McQueen. And also, the unexpected brevity of the shoot meant that he had an entire afternoon free for once, which was a gift he wasn't exactly going to protest about.

"Good point." He stepped out of the bright lightly shooting space into the more dimly lit area 'behind the scenes' already pulling off the suit jacket that had been foisted upon him by the over enthusiastic stylist with a sense of relief. Thankfully the general tack that these women (and it was always women) seemed to take with him was that of 'regular, rugged bloke' as opposed to the more overtly styled presentations that they seemed to favour with some of his more fashion conscious peers, such as Ben or Tom Hiddleston, but it was still always a relief to peel himself out of whatever had been inflicted upon him and reclaim his own clothes. He wasn't one to object to a nicely cut suit or two, but there was a time and a place, and a Monday afternoon under hot lights in a studio in East London in winter wasn't one of them.

“So, will you need me for anything else?”

“No, no,” Bailey waved him away with a casual gesture. “I'll send you and the magazine my choice of the proofs overnight tonight by email. Then it's up to the lot of you to make the final decision as to which makes the cut. It's a cover shot for _Elle_ , right?”

Mike shrugged non-committedly. “I think so. Cover and some interior shot to go with the interview.” He looked distinctly unimpressed and Bailey smiled slightly at him, roughly sympathetic. 

“Can't be bothered with the bullshit, boyo?”

Mike's normally mobile mouth pressed into a thin line. “It's a necessary evil. I get that. But I've said it before, I'm an actor, not a politician and after a while...” he sighed. “Interviews just get a bit tired, that's all. And especially those for women's magazines. They all want to know when I'm going to get a girl.”

Bailey smirked at him. “I thought you were notorious for getting _all_ the girls....”

Mike barked a laugh, caught by surprise by the sudden snarky comment and rubbed the back of his neck in mild embarrassment. “I do all right. But they all want to know when I'm going to settle down, and that's not exactly something I can answer, just now.”

Bailey grinned at him. “Well, a man's entitled to play the field for as long as he wants, as long as he treats his lady friends with a little respect. God knows, I did it for decades.”

Mike quirked a smile. Bailey's exploits had been legendary in the sixties and the seventies, and according to rumour the man had managed to sleep with most of the supermodels in both decades. Absent-mindedly, his gaze slipped across the exposed brick of the back wall to the studio. The arched space was covered in the framed black and white photos that Bailey was famous for, of actors and rock stars and designers and so many models. Mike knew quite a few of the faces on the wall personally, and many others by reputation. For a moment, he just stood there, examining them. It was a remarkable roll call of talent.

There was a brief stir in the air as Bailey moved to stand beside him, scrutinising the wall of pictures with an ever critical eye and a slight frown, never truly satisfied with his work. “I think I might put you up there, to join the company, if any of the shots turn out all right,” he commented absently. 

Mike turned his head to look at the other man, taken aback and genuinely flattered. “Well. That would be....I would love that.”

Bailey smiled a little. “It'll be an illustrious company you'll be joining, lad.”

Mike nodded his agreement, his gaze still sweeping across the assembled photographs. He noticed that amongst all the Hollywood actors and various luminaries of the arts and music scenes there were a few pictures of Bailey's children at various ages and also a number of pictures of a stunningly beautiful brunette woman who gazed enigmatically at the camera, self possession oozing from every shot. 

“Is that your wife?”

Bailey smiled, a softer edge to his normal rough grin appearing. “That's right. That's my Cath.”

“She's gorgeous,” Mike noted softly in genuine admiration and Bailey's smile widened and softened still further. 

“She is. Just seems to get more and more beautiful with age.” He shook his head ruefully. “Don't know how she does it. Maybe it's the bone structure.”

“How long have you been together?” 

Bailey thought for a minute, rocking back and forth on his heels as he considered. “Well, we met in '83, and we've been together ever since. So, just over 30 years now.”

Mike whistled soundlessly. That was an amazing length for a relationship to last, especially within the arts and fashion community. “That's impressive,” he noted softly. 

Bailey regarded him with a slightly surprised raised eyebrow. He doubted that Fassbender realised exactly how wistful he had just sounded. He patted a paternal hand on the younger man's shoulder for a moment. 

“And she's still a complete mystery, a total enigma to me. That's what you need, lad, if you're going to be with just one woman. The kind of woman who is still just as fascinating to you on the ten thousandth day you know her as she was on the second. Cath's like that. I still find something new to discover about her every day.” 

Mike looked up again at the nearest photograph of Catherine Bailey where she gazed down imperiously at the rest of the studio and her husband. “I think that you're a very lucky man.”

Bailey gave Mike's shoulder a brief shake. “'Course I am, and I know it, which makes me even luckier. Come on then, boyo. We're going to get a coffee and then you can tell me a few tall tales about those exploits of yours that my sons keep telling me about. Not that you'll have anything on Jack, Jack Nicholson,” he clarified at Fassbender’s inquiring look, “but at least you can keep me amused for a few hours before I kick you out.”

Mike shivered, pulled out of his momentary burst of uncharacteristic melancholy by Bailey's rough affection and brutal practicality. 

“That would be great, thanks. But really, my exploits have mostly been totally exaggerated. And there is no way I can ever come close to Jack's. I just don't have the stamina, I'm afraid.”

Bailey sniggered. “Well, there is only one Jack Nicholson, after all. But you can keep me entertained for a few hours anyway. And I'll introduce you to my wife as well.” He gave his younger companion a shrewd glance. “Give you an idea as to what kind of woman you should be looking for if you do decide to get yourself a girl.”

“How did you know that I've been thinking about...” his voice trailed off as Bailey shook his head reprovingly at him.

“Don't try to con a con-artist, kid. I was a total cocksman for decades. I know what it's like. And I know that even the greatest connoisseur of women eventually wants to stop waking up every morning with a stranger's head on their pillow.” He flung an arm around Fassbender's shoulders companionably as he guided him over to the door to the studio green room where he kept the drink. “It's like quitting any other addiction. At some point you have to stop, or it goes from being a fun indulgence to ruining your life. For me, the quitting point was Cath walking into my studio. For you, I think you're probably just starting to look for your quitting point. But that can be fun too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Please review!_


	10. Chapter 10

_Press night party for The Mistress Contract – Royal Court Theatre, London - March 2014_

Abi Morgan was hiding. Just her and her (unfortunately) nearly empty glass of champagne. She would go out there again, she would. Honestly. She had promised her agent and the rest of the team at the Royal Court that she would press the flesh for at least another hour before she could make a run for it, but really she just needed a break first. Just for a few minutes. Honestly. Just five more minutes. She was a writer. She was happiest at her desk or in the rehearsal room or on set. This public exposure business was really not her forte. And this alcove was really convenient. If she just kept her back turned, surely no one would recognise her just from the back of her head.....

“Abi?”

The speaker sounded slightly hesitant, as though unsure whether to interrupt Abi's contemplation of her champagne glass, but the writer instantly recognised the distinctively soft Scottish tones of the speaker and spirits rising, spun around to greet her interrupter with a genuine smile. 

“Kat!”

Her interruption smiled shyly at the sincere pleasure in Abi's greeting and the instant opening of her arms for a hug. With only a tiny hesitation, the actress moved in to return her friend's embrace, and squeezed her briefly, but tightly before stepping back. Abi just beamed at her, long used to Kat's hesitancy when it came to personal contact.

"How are you, sweetie? I haven't seen you since the press night for _The Duchess_. Oh – and congratulations on that, what a sterling run you had. _And_ they extended it!"

Kat smiled at her enthusiasm, as usual, slightly abashed by any compliments. "Thank you. It still seems a little strange that it's closed. Every day at certain times I feel like Lassie, in Lassie Come Home – I have to get to The Globe; I have to get to The Globe…!"

Abi laughed at her friend's wild eyed expression. "Yes! But give it a few weeks and that will go away. Especially when you start something else." She caught the change in Kat's expression. "Oh – you already have something else?"

"Yes." She briefly checked that no one could hear their conversation and leaned into her friend, her smile bright. "I have a five episode arc in _The Good Wife_. Filming in New York. I have to be there in a few weeks and it's an 80 day block, so I'll be out there for about three months in total, until about the end of June."

Abi squeaked in excitement and leaned forward to give another spontaneous hug. "That's _wonderful!_ I _love_ that show, the writing is _excellent_ , and the cast are superb. And it's really high profile in the States."

Kat smiled again, her eyes dancing. "I know. I'm really pleased. And there are various things my agent has lined up for me after that, that I'm not allowed to mention. So I'm pretty much booked up until the end of the year."

Abi took another sip of her drink, bubbling over with enthusiasm at this evidence of what she considered to be wonderful karma. She _adored_ Kat, she really did, and considered her to be one of the most intelligent and level headed actor/producers she knew. And she was such a great writer as well when she could take the time. She really was so _wonderfully_ talented. Suddenly a burst of emotion at the absolute rightness of her friend doing so well flooded her body and her eyes threatened to well up. Oh dear. She considered her glass carefully. Maybe she needed to slow down with the bubbly, or she was going to start weeping all over the place. Champagne always did have that effect on her.

"Oh, that's wonderful sweetheart! Apart from the fact that I might not see you enough!" She nudged Kat gently. "We'll have to rectify that. When are you going to do one of my things?" 

Kat laughed quietly. "When you ask me properly! I told you a long time ago, if you have something you think would be suitable, I'll be first in line. I loved the show today for instance." 

Abi made a moue of disappointment. "Heartless wench! I considered asking if you wanted to read for this, but your agent said that you'd already signed on for _The Duchess_ , and so there wasn't any point. But next time, McPherson," she leveled a finger at her friend meaningfully. "You're not getting off the hook that easily." 

Kat put up her hands in a mock defensive gesture and grinned. "Have mercy! I promise! Seriously, Abi, let me know next time you have something suitable. I'd love to collaborate with you on something." She held up a finger of her own as she remembered. "Actually, I met up with one of your old collaborators a few weeks ago."

Abi cocked an eyebrow, her interest piqued. "Yes? Who?"

"Steve. Steve McQueen. Ben Cumberbatch introduced us."

Abi's expression lit up even more. "Oh really?! Oh – I love Steve! How is he? And he's doing so well!"

Both woman traded smiles. That of course was an extreme understatement, with _12 Years_ winning a slew of awards including Best Actor and Best Film at the BAFTA's as well as picking up a Best Film at the Oscars and a best supporting Actress gong for Lupita Nyong'o. Steve had been piqued at the post for Best Director by Alfonso Cuaron for _Gravity_ and the Best Actor gong had gone to Matthew McConaughey for his performance in the _Dallas Buyer's Club_ but the whole thing had still done outstandingly well.

"I still think Lupito was _robbed_ of that Best Supporting Actress award at the BAFTA's. Jen Lawrence is lovely, but still…"

Kat nodded solemnly in agreement at Abi's vehement comment, her eyes dancing with amusement.

"I'm sure she was happy with an Oscar as a consolation prize." The two women grinned at each other, appreciating the deliberate understatement.

"So how did it go? Meeting Steve, I mean. Did you get on?"

Her friend frowned slightly, considering. "That's the thing, Abi. We really did. And you know I don't find meeting new people particularly easy."

Abi nudged her gently in the ribs again and smiled teasingly at her friend. _That_ was a chronic understatement. By the overly familiar standards of their industry, Kat was usually pretty terrible when it came to meeting new people. Especially men. Admittedly, she probably had her reasons, which Abi assumed were very valid, although her friend had never explicitly shared them with her, but still…

"But there was just something about Steve. We just sort of…clicked. It was very strange."

Abi nodded sagely. "Well, that's Steve. If he likes you, and you're on his wavelength he's incredibly easy to talk to. That's what happened with me and him and _Shame_. I saw _Hunger_ and asked to meet him. We both only had an hour free to chat, but then three hours later we were still talking and we pretty much had the entire first two pages of _Shame_ drafted out, right there on the table. It was great –one of the best professional experiences of my life. He's _such_ a good person to work with, and he's so loyal to his people. Look at him and Mike Fassbender for god's sake."

Kat nodded in agreement. McQueen's loyalty to the people he liked, technical artists as well as actors and writers, was pretty much legendary. He tended to use the same crew over and over again if he could and he had had the same cinematographer for thirteen years.

"So what did you talk about?" 

Kat smiled a little sheepishly and reached up a hand to rub the back of her neck. "I ended up ranting about violence in society towards women and the female response." She caught Abi's amused look and rolled her eyes in acknowledgement. The writer was one of the few in the industry with whom she felt comfortable enough to fully release the brakes on her brain and her mouth when she was in her company. Accordingly, they had spent many an evening together ranting about the ills of the world. As such, Abi was only too familiar both with the ferocity of her friend's intellect and the vast breadth of her knowledge about the most obscure subjects – as well as her tendency to simply overwhelm a listener with both if she got carried away.

"In my defence, he did ask! And he was right there with me. I'm pretty sure he asked as many questions as I had answers." She smiled again, a little embarrassed at the recollection. "But poor Ben was rather caught in the cross fire. He only expected to get a quick drink and a catch up after the show with both of us, and ended up having to listen to the two of us put the world to rights until we got thrown out of the Groucho at 2am. But I have promised him dinner to make up for it," she added hastily. 

Abi chuckled. "I'm sure he didn't mind that much. And it's great that you got on so well with Steve. He's a very nice person to know. And _such_ a good contact."

Kat rolled her eyes at that. "That's what Ben said too. But I really don’t care about that. He was just - so very interesting, you know?"

"Absolutely. So how did you leave it?"

Kat smiled; still a little surprised by the way events had turned out. "He wants us to work on some ideas he has for a new project together. In fact, I'm going over to Amsterdam for a few days to meet him and Bianca at their house next week, before I head out for New York. Bianca's invited me for dinner and Steve wants to brainstorm with the three of us about whether we can develop something based on what we discussed. It seems Bianca is very keen, as well, so that's a relief."

"Oh! That _is_ great! How _exciting_. You must keep me in the loop as to how that goes."

Kat smiled again at her friend's enthusiasm. Glancing around, she saw Abi's agent advancing upon their nook with a determined expression on her face and reached out to tuck her hand into her friend's arm, gently turning her around to face the direction of the rest of the party again.

"I will. But look, Alice is on the warpath. So, why don't we go and get you a top up and you can drag me around as your wing woman for the next half an hour, then we slip away and have a proper catch up?"

Abi eyed the grim eyed agent bearing down on them with faint dread and clutched Kat's arm tightly. "You'd do that for me? Really?" At her friend's amused nod, she almost visibly pulled herself up to her full height and took a deep breath. "Right then. Let's get this over with. Once more into the breach, and all that." She shot Kat a stern look. "And then we are going to go somewhere and get something decent to eat and you are going to tell me _everything_."

Laughing, Kat nodded as she allowed herself to be dragged away into the crowd. After all, for really good friends, one had to be prepared to make sacrifices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Please review!_


	11. Chapter 11

_Talkback productions recording studios – Soho, London – August 2014_

“Ben.”

“Kat, darling.” He leaned in to brush a kiss over one peach soft cheek before giving his skittish friend her space again. “It's been far too long.”

She smiled up at him, those green eyes lit up with affection. “Yes, it has. I'm sorry I couldn't make it to Comic-Con this year.”

“Hhmm. Yes. It's a pity – it was great to catch up with all of your Jacksonesque troop. Were you working?”

“Yes – I was filming the second season of _The Musketeers_ in the Czech Republic. I'd hoped to make it out to San Diego despite that, but we had some major scheduling conflicts and eventually the powers that be let me out of it.”

“Such is life. You missed an excellent party.” She shook her head in resigned amusement. Benedict Cumberbatch, party animal to the last. 

“So, we last saw each other in....”

“January, it was. Remember? I came and saw _The Duchess_ with Steve McQueen.”

She nodded. “Of course. Steve's pretty hard to forget.”

“Well, congratulations on concluding a successful run.”

“Thank you – and you – congratulations on _12 Years_! How were the Oscars? I saw the photos – you looked like you had fun.”

Ben smirked. “I had an _excellent_ amount of fun, of the kind I probably shouldn't have indulged in. But you only live once. And how often do you get a chance to photo bomb U2? That’s one for my album to show the grand-kids.” 

Kat laughed and shook her head in amusement. “You do realise that you only get away with it because you’re charming, don’t you?” 

Ben’s smirk widened and gained a definitely smug edge. “I know,” he confirmed airily. “It’s my cross to bear.” 

She rolled her eyes and forbore to give his already expansive ego even more of a boost. “ _Anyway_. Moving on. How’s work? How was Boston? I spent some time there a while ago and I really liked it.”

Ben’s face lit up and he bounced in place, for a moment looking ridiculously tigger like for a man in his late thirties. “Boston was wonderful. A really nice city and great for just wandering around in on my days off. And working on _Black Mass_ with Johnny and Joel and Dakota was amazing. And of course, I got to touch base with Sienna again, which I hadn’t had a chance to do for ages, so that was great.”

“So you had a good time?”

“I had an _excellent_ time. And,” he held up his hand, fingers pressing against each other, “fingers crossed, I think the finished product might be quite good, as long as it isn't mucked about too much in editing.”

“And how was your Director?”

“Scott? Very nice chap. Bit earnest, like a lot of Americans, but definitely knew his shit, so that made the whole thing run a lot more smoothly than might have otherwise been anticipated. Altogether it was a rather good shoot.”

“What’s next then?”

“Well, I have a bit of a break and then I’m starting press and promotion for _Penguins of Madagascar_ and _The Imitation Game_ , which will be a bit of a grind, but still good fun.”

Kat shuddered. “Rather you than me. That’s the one part of this job I have never been able to enjoy.”

“Ah yes, darling, but as we have previously discussed, you are atypically anti-social for a working actress.”

Her mobile mouth creased up in a moue of reluctant agreement. “True,” she sighed. “Personally, I hope I manage to convince people that I’m just not that interesting, so that they leave me alone.”

He gave her a wry look. “Which is a statement that anyone who knows you properly would be appalled at for its dishonesty.”

“Flattery will not get you anywhere, Mr Cumberbatch.”

“It’s not flattery when it’s true, Ms McPherson.”

She shook her head, dismissing the compliment and determined to change the subject away from her. “I saw that your _Hamlet_ has sold out already.” She grinned up at him impishly. “So no pressure to perform there, Ben.”

He shuddered, a look of mild terror flashing over his face. “Let’s have a truce. I won’t mention your ridiculous and unnecessary levels of self deprecation and you won’t mention the H word.”

“What, **_Hamlet?_** ” She teased, green eyes artificially wide and innocent.

He shivered again. “Yes! Please don’t. Just the very idea is a little terrifying just now. So I am doing my very best not to think about it.” He gave her an imploring look. “Please don’t make me!” 

She smirked. “It’s a deal.”

He grinned back a little sheepishly. In truth, he was trying to avoid thinking about his upcoming date with the Bard, as it was more than slightly terrifying, but he also might have been exaggerating a little bit, just to see that rather wicked grin on his friend’s face. Kat was by nature rather introverted and as a committed extrovert Ben could never resist the opportunity to pull her out of her solemnity, even just for a moment.

“So, moving on, as you said. What have you been up to since we last spoke?”

They spent the next ten minutes or so happily engaged in catching up before the producer emerged to drag them into work to meet the rest of the cast. The rest of the day was full on, as even the BBC could only contract a cast of this calibre for a few days work and accordingly, were absolutely to wring every minute out of them that they could. However, the gig was a radio play which allowed for a far more rapid pace of production than a filmed drama, and so by the time they finished for the evening at around six pm after the only break being a brief sandwich lunch, a lot of progress had been made but Ben was absolutely ravenous. 

“What are you doing now?” he asked Kat, as he grabbed his bag.

She shrugged. “I was just going to ran a few errands and then head home. You?”

“I was going to grab some dinner, do you want to come? We didn't really get a chance to catch up properly this morning and we could conclude our chat.”

She hesitated. On the one hand she had spent far too much time today just hanging around in a too crowded room with lots of people in too close a physical proximity for her comfort and her punch bag and the delicious de-stressing narcotic of bruising exercise was already singing a siren song. But on the other hand, she didn't get a chance to catch up with Ben very often, and rather to her surprise Cumberbatch had managed to wheedle his way into the select group of people she considered to be true friends, rather than just work colleagues. And with their respective hectic schedules, (although his was madder than hers) they might not see each other until December, when their current project was due to record its second episode. After all, she was due in Vancouver in a few weeks to undertake a four episode arc as a guest star in _Arrow_ , which she was looking forward to immensely (stunt work was excellent fun), but which would keep her in Vancouver until October and then after that she had a guest role lined up in _Criminal Minds_ , playing ‘serial killer of the week’ in November, in LA. Admittedly, she might bump into Ben over there, as he was always popping back and forth, especially since he would be doing press and hopefully accepting awards, but it wasn't that likely. 

He could track the indecision written across her face and smiled inwardly. Sometimes she really was remarkably transparent, especially for some one who was so reserved by nature. Perhaps he could sweeten the pot. “I was thinking of _The Delauney_ …?” He cunningly name dropped one of her favourite restaurants.

She was wavering he could tell, but she still wasn't sure. “Just us?” 

His mobile mouth twisted as he shrugged. “Well, no actually. I do have a mate coming as well. Tom. Tom Hiddleston. I don’t think you've met.”

“No, we haven’t.” She shook her head decisively. “In that case, I think I’ll pass. I’m a bit tired and not really up for meeting anyone new tonight.”

He sighed to himself. He shouldn't have mentioned that Tom was coming. He would have known that would put her off. She always did find meeting new people in social situations a little stressful, a tendency which to a party animal like himself, was rather incomprehensible.

“If you’re sure?” His rising intonation questioned her decision but she stomped on the remnant of his hopes with a firm nod of her head. 

“Quite sure. We've got an early start tomorrow and I need to go for a run first, so having an easy night is probably the best idea. But we can grab dinner or coffee tomorrow if you want? Just us?”

He sighed in reluctant defeat. “Absolutely. Well then, darling. Enjoy your evening.”

She smiled at him and stood on her tip toes to brush her habitual feather light kiss over his cheek before she backed off. “See you tomorrow, Ben. Have a good night.”

“You too, darling.”

And with a final bright smile she was gone.

Ben sighed to himself. She really was determinedly anti-social. Most of his female friends would have loved the opportunity to meet Tom, as the bastard was outrageously charming and devilishly handsome to boot. In fact he was usually the subject of his female mates not so subtle enquiries as to whether he would be able to set them up with his fellow actor. But as always, Kat bucked the trend.

He was still contemplating Kat’s stubborn intransigence when he slipped into the restaurant and was shown to a table discreetly tucked away at the back in an alcove, out of the way of any rubberneckers. Tom was already there, lounging across the padded banquette in a blue shirt that made his eyes even bluer than normal and some old black jeans, his hair tinted his habitual red brown. He was his usual wiry, lanky self, having just come off shooting _Crimson Peak_ and just about to start his prep for the Hank Williams biopic he was due to start principal photography for in September, which he was looking forward to immensely. But he was definitely also appreciating a well deserved break at home in between the two location shoots, as he hadn't been in London much so far this year.

“Ben.” He pulled his friend into a brief man hug, which Ben returned before he dropped down into his seat. “I've already ordered some starters and some drinks, mate. You’re not on any special diet for work are you?” At Ben’s shake of his head, Tom grinned brightly. “Excellent. We can get slaughtered! Anyone else coming, or is it just us two?”

Cumberbatch shook his head ruefully. “I can’t get too slaughtered, Tom. I’ve work pretty early tomorrow. And it’s just us, I’m afraid. I’d hoped to persuade one of the fairer sex to join us for the evening, but she had other plans.”

“Oh?” Hiddleston’s eyebrows rose in mild curiosity. “Who’s that then?”

Ben leaned back in his chair, stretching his long legs in front of him with a groan of relief. The waiter appeared before he could answer, and Ben paused until the older man had dropped off the bread basket and assorted nibbles plus drinks and taken their orders for dinner before he continued. He grabbed a roll, plastered some butter on it and ripped into it hungrily. “God, I’m _starving_ ,” he practically moaned around a mouthful of delicious carbohydrate.

Tom regarded his antics with an amused eye. He knew better than anyone the amount of fuel tall skinny bastards like he and Ben needed to consume on a day to day basis just to maintain their normal weight. Having a fast metabolic rate could be a bitch sometimes, especially for a runner like himself, and it made it horrendous trying to bulk up properly for a role. So he waited patiently until Cumberbatch had inhaled his first roll and then prompted him before he reached for a second.

“Ben.”

“What?” His old friend answered distractedly, even as he buttered his second bap. 

“You said you asked a female friend along. Who was that? You don’t normally bring a girl along to our dinners. Was it someone special? Are thousands of women’s hearts breaking across the world tonight? Is Ben Cumberbatch finally off the market?” he teased and then snorted with laughter as Ben almost choked on the next bite of bread he had stuffed into his mouth.

“God, no. No, no, no.” Ben shook his head forcefully. “Not that I wouldn't like her to be,” he admitted, rather wistfully. “But that’s not on the cards for her and me. I worked that one out quite a while ago. Actually, I tried to persuade her to come because I thought _you_ would like to meet her.”

“Me?” Tom was rather taken aback. It wasn't like Ben to try and set him up. 

“Yes. I mean,” Ben waved his bread filled hand around in emphasis. “You've only been muttering about wanting to meet her for the last six months or so, so I thought I’d facilitate a face to face. After all, isn't that what friends are for?”

“What on earth are you wittering on about, Cumberbitch?”

Ben rolled his eyes at his younger friend’s obliviousness. “I know you haven’t met her, but who have you been quietly singing the praises of to me for the last few months?”

Tom stilled looked confused and Ben shook his head reprovingly. “You went to see her at the Globe in January with your Mum and haven’t shut up about it since,” he prompted. 

Comprehension dawned. “Kat McPherson?” Hiddleston enquired, incredulous. “ _Really_?” 

He leaned back in his seat at Ben’s nod. “How the hell do you know her? And why didn't you tell me sooner?”

Ben shrugged. “I've known her for a few years – ever since _The Hobbit_ shoot down in New Zealand. Martin introduced us.”

“Then why on earth didn't you mention it before? You must have been laughing your arse off listening to me going on about her and how good she was in _The Duchess_.”

Ben shook his head. “Well, I wasn't. It just didn't come up. And she _was_ brilliant in _The Duchess_. I know, I saw it too. And I didn't tell you earlier in part because I knew you would want to meet her and I didn't want to get caught in the middle.”

Hiddleston frowned. “What do you mean, caught in the middle? Is she married or something?”

“No, no. It’s just that,” Ben paused as he tried to think of the right way to explain Kat’s peculiar mix of quiet reserve and reticence to someone as confident as Tom. It was almost something you had to experience in person to really understand. Eventually he went for the simplest explanation. “She’s…shy. And pretty uncomfortable with new people in social situations. And I didn't want to put her on the spot. She would hate that. And I knew if I just dragged her along to meet you without giving her the choice she’d be horrendously uncomfortable and it would go horribly wrong and I would be lucky if she talked to me for _months_.”

Tom looked rather nonplussed at Ben’s rushed explanation. “Am I that bad?” his tone slightly aggrieved. Ben snorted out a bark of laughter at the affronted expression on his friend’s face.

“No, no. Genuinely in this case, it’s not you, it’s her. She doesn't really date. Sort of married to her work.” He sighed to himself. “I promise you, Hiddleston, that if she did date, by now I would have been well down the path of trying to persuade her to become hopefully the first and only Mrs B. Cumberbatch. But she’s not really interested in me, or in anyone. That became clear pretty quickly.”

Tom was surprised by this. “And you just left it there? You didn't try and woo her, so to speak? Where was the Ben Cumberbatch Otter-like charm when you needed it?”

“There was no point. I saw a few other lads try it on and it just made her profoundly uncomfortable and then retreat at speed. And I wasn't willing to risk a perfectly good friendship on a losing bet.”

“Huh. I suppose that makes sense. But you thought that I might have a chance?” 

Ben shook his head. “No, I just thought you might like to meet her anyway. And you’re charming enough when you want to be that I thought you might have a chance at putting her at her ease. The rest would have been up to you. But when I mentioned that you were coming she backed out, so that scuppered that. And I wasn't about to push it.”

Tom leaned back in his chair, slightly stunned by these revelations. “Huh. So she didn't want to meet me, then?” 

“Don’t take it personally, mate. It wasn't that she didn't want to meet you; it was that she didn't want to meet _anyone_ tonight. She’s pretty hard to get to know, you see. Very reserved. And I wasn't about to push her to come if she didn't want to.”

Tom raised an eyebrow at the conviction in his friend’s tone. “You sound a little protective there, Ben.”

His friend shrugged. “That’s because I am. Kat deserves people willing to watch out for her, so I do. Just me, and an entire Fellowship of smitten straight and gay dwarf and hobbit actors, as well as half the people who have worked with her.” He grinned at Tom’s surprised expression at that declaration. “She’s very easy to like, you see, once you get past the shyness.”

“Oh.” Tom was a little taken aback by the steadfast devotion in his friend’s voice. He shifted in his seat, reaching forward to grab a roll before Ben ate his way through them all. “Well then, I can only hope that maybe one day I’ll have the privilege of finding that out in person.”

Ben saluted him with his glass. “Maybe you will. Stranger things have happened and it’s a very small world we work in.” Tom nodded in fervent agreement with the truth of _that_ statement. “So, moving on, Hiddleston. What have you been up to since I saw you last?”

Tom smiled and grasped the conversational olive branch that was being offered as he was supposed to, but not without pushing down a wistful regret of how differently these evening might have gone. Well, as Ben pointed out, acting in the UK at their level was a very small world and the chances of McPherson evading him for ever were slim to none. He was sure that one day they would meet. And he was already anticipating that meeting with interest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Reviews (or at the very least kudos) are the life blood of a fanfic author - please drop me a line to tell me what you do and don't like!_


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Again, apologies to any US readers - British author and British spellings abound...._

**_Studio of David Bailey, Clerkenwell, East London - August 2014_ **

One of the issues with dealing with 'celebrities', Fenton Bailey mused as he scrolled through Vogue's website to see if his Dad's last shoot of Kate Moss was up yet, was that they were seldom, if ever, on time. Unlike models, who at least tended to have the professionalism to turn up when they were supposed to. 

It was one of the many things about shooting non-professionals that drove his Dad nuts, which explained why Bailey was increasingly reluctant to take on any further portrait shoots that he didn't organise himself. But the Art Director at _Elle_ had begged him, and Robert Downey Jr had an interesting face, as well as being a repeat customer, and accordingly Bailey had made an exception. But Downey Jr was running according to celebrity form i.e. late. Hence the fact that he and his Dad and the stylist and the make up girl and the other members of the team were currently on hiatus, waiting, a situation guaranteed to make his always somewhat irascible father even more irritated.

Fenton had already ensured that everything he might possibly need to do had been done and had even taken the time to deal with his section of the studio's ever growing admin, knowing from bitter experience that if he didn't his Dad would somehow be able to tell and his son would certainly hear about it. But now Fenton knew he could afford to sit down with a cuppa and his tablet, secure that he was up to date with everything, and he had even made an attempt to sooth the savage beast by shoving a cup of tea into Bailey's hand as well, which had been received with a mild grunt of thanks.

He took another sip of tea, absent-mindedly scrolling through the arts review section of _Vogue_ online as he did so. One of his mates had a film out soon and he was curious to check out the pre-release buzz as to whether it was likely to be a stinker or not. But by the look of it, _Vogue_ hadn't picked the film up and he was about to exit the site when he caught sight of a link to a profile of one of his favourite actresses, and opened up the article with a sense of pleasurable anticipation.

As a photographer himself, his eyes were immediately drawn to the attached photographs, which he noted with a sense of slight disappointment, were comprised of either old footage or stills from her TV and film work. But she was lovely nonetheless and he chose his favourite of the shots to enlarge, bringing it up full screen so he could undertake his customary obsessive observation of that still and wary face, with those wonderfully Slavic cheekbones, those narrowed, suspicious, green eyes and that wealth of dark hair that he would love to bury his hands in.

He was so absorbed that he didn't even notice when the sound of his Dad's ceaseless pacing around the studio stopped behind him.

"Who's that?" 

Fenton almost spilled his tea over his iPad in his shock. 

"Jesus Christ, Dad! Don't sneak up on me like that!"

Bailey rolled his eyes at his son's overreaction and went back to staring hawk-like through red edged eyes at the photo of the dark haired girl who dominated the screen of his son's tablet. Fenton sighed and passed him the tablet, resigned to having his moment of peace irredeemably disturbed. Bailey examined the image with the eagle eye of a professional photographer of over fifty years experience and frowned as he turned to his son.

"So, who's that? I recognise her, but I don't think we've shot her before."

Fenton gingerly took the tablet from his Father, infinitely familiar with his Dad's tendency to destroy any technical equipment that wasn't one of his precious cameras. "Her name's Kat McPherson. She's an actress, not a model. And no, we haven't shot her. I definitely would have remembered it if we had."

Bailey tilted his head at his son in an unspoken query at the wistful tone in his older boy's voice and then grinned. "Fancy her, do you?" He took another look at the image and pursued his lips in consideration. "Well, you've got good taste, lad, I'll give you that." He stared down at the picture again and frowned. "I'm sure I've seen her before somewhere."

Fenton shrugged. "I don't know, Dad, but I doubt it. She's a bit elusive. Not exactly known for being a regular on the party scene."

His Dad raised an amused eyebrow. "And you've been keeping an eye out, have you?" 

Fenton grinned sheepishly. "I might have, possibly, looked around a bit. At least initially. But I've given it up now. She's too evasive for me."

"Hhmm." The older man considered the image again. "She's got an interesting face." He glanced up at his son. "Has she done any modelling?" 

"Not that I know of. Just straight acting."

"She any good?"

The younger nodded. "Yeah, she's pretty good. She's doing well for herself."

Bailey nodded absently. He might not be up to date on what was current any more but he trusted both of his sons' judgement on that kind of thing. He analysed the image on the tablet again, the stillness of the girl's features, the wary, withdrawn look in her eyes. There was something strangely familiar about her face, but also a wildness that he found compelling, an arresting rawness. He wanted to see what she would be like in person. He wanted to see what she would be like if he could get her to _smile._

"I want to shoot her. Set it up, will you?"

Fenton blinked. Even as accustomed as he was to his Dad's lightening decisions this one had come out of nowhere.

"What?! Why?"

Bailey frowned and shrugged. "Because she's got an interesting face. I don't need another reason."

His son cocked his head, still trying to understand what was going on in his Dad's head. "You want me to arrange a session with _Elle_ or _Tatler,_ or _Harpers_? Get us some money for it?"

His Dad shook his head decisively. "No, no. No third parties. Just for my private portfolio. Tell her people she'll get full pick of the product and usage rights with my agreement." 

"Okay, Dad," Fenton responded slowly. "I'll try. But it might not be as easy as you think." 

"Why not?" 

"Well, you may have noticed that all the pictures in the article are stills from her work or old shots." 

"Yeah?" 

"Well, she doesn't do photo shoots. Hell, she doesn't even do any interviews outside the ones she is absolutely required to give, and never if it's personal. She's not interested." 

"Why?" 

Fenton shrugged again. "I don't know. She's just not looking for the extra publicity I guess." 

Bailey pursed his mouth as he contemplated the unusual concept of an actress who wouldn't sell her soul for publicity and might actually turn him, David Bailey, down. Despite himself, he was even more intrigued. It had been a hell of a long time since any of his subjects had played hard to get. 

"Give it a go, anyway. Call her people. If it doesn't work come back to me and I'll see what I can work out." 

His son nodded his agreement. "Will do" He grinned. "Tell me that you're not doing this for my birthday." 

"Ha!" Bailey barked a laugh at that one. "Not a chance, my boy. And if she does agree to come, you better be on your best behaviour, mind you!" He wagged a warning finger in his son's face. 

Fenton merely smirked, the same shit eating grin he'd inherited from his father. "I promise. I'll be a perfect gentleman. But that doesn't mean I can't look!" 

His father chuckled at him and was just about to respond when a commotion at the entrance to the studio signified the entrance of the late Mr Downey Jr and his people. Bailey rubbed his hands together in anticipation, attention completely diverted. "Finally! Right, people, let's get moving." But he spared a moment for one last glance at that still face on the tablet. Some how, he knew he'd seen that girl before somewhere. But for the life of him, he couldn't remember where. 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

  
_**North London – August 2014** _   


The call came in very early in the morning. So early, in fact, that she was still halfway through her morning run, the chirp of the incoming communication breaking through the random upbeat weirdness of her playlist. 

"Yes?" 

"Kat?" To her surprise she realised it was Tor Belfrage, her agent.

"Tor? It's a bit early for you isn't it? Is everything okay?" 

There was a rustle of paperwork over the line. "No, no, everything's fine. I'm actually in Berlin just now, so it's a little later for me. I'm also rather over-scheduled today so I thought I'd get some calls out of the way first, while I still have time." 

Kat grinned to herself. Tor was always over-scheduled. It was one of the side-effects of representing 35 of the biggest names in the UK acting business while being essentially a one woman band. But she would rather have Tor at her most scattily efficient as her agent than anyone else at their most business-like. 

"Then to what do I owe the pleasure? It's not anything to do with the contract negotiations on…" 

"No, no," Tor interrupted before Kat could even finish the sentence. "Nothing like that. I just had a rather intriguing offer come across my desk and I thought that you might be interested." 

Despite herself, Kat found her curiosity piqued. "What is it?" 

"David Bailey's son, Fenton called. Bailey wants to do a photo shoot," Kat interrupted her agent before she went any further. 

"No. I'm not interested," she stated firmly. 

Tor sighed heavily on the other end of the phone and made a valiant effort to change her mind. "It's _Bailey_ , Kat! _David Bailey_! He's a legend! An icon in his own right! And he wants to take your picture." 

Unseen by her agent Kat rolled her eyes and picked up her pace, long legs eating up the ground automatically. "And I'm not interested! I've told you before, Tor. I'm not going to do any more of that kind of stuff unless I have to, and this certainly doesn't count as that!" 

Her agent sighed in frustration. Belfrage hadn't really thought that she would be able to persuade her most publicity shy client into attending the shoot, but she thought it was worth a try. After all -it was _David Bailey!_ Just the fact that the photographer wanted to shoot her client was a coup in itself. And the photos would have undoubtedly been marvellous. But she had known it was a long shot. Kat was possibly the most exposure adverse inadvertent celebrity she had ever represented and for such a stunningly beautiful girl had such a casual disinterest in her own spectacular looks that it was almost criminal. The number of times Tor had had to practically bully her into sprucing herself up for this or that event...unseen by her client Tor shook her head in exasperated but fond, resignation. 

"All right. You win, as always. I'll go back to them and let them know that you're not interested." 

"Thank you! I appreciate it." Her client's firm tone softened a little. "I know that your life would be a lot easier if I did these things, Tor. But it's just not my kind of thing." 

"I know darling. Don't worry - if every client I had made my life easy where would be the challenge?!" The older woman chuckled softly and Kat joined in. 

"Well Katerina, I'll leave you to your day. Coffee when I get back from Berlin?" 

"Absolutely," Kat confirmed firmly. "Just give me a shout." 

"Will do. Have a good day." 

And with that Kat hung up and jogged on, confident that the matter had been dealt with. 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

_**Studio of David Bailey, Clerkenwell, East London – August 2014**_

"Dad." 

"Hhmm?" Bailey looked up from the image table where he was considering the products of his latest shoot at his eldest son, who was hovering at his elbow as he characteristically did when he needed to impart some information to his father, smart phone clasped in one hand. 

"What?" 

Fenton waited patiently until he was sure he had his Dad's full attention before he spoke as he knew that otherwise he'd just have to repeat himself later. "I've just got off the phone to Tor Belfrage, Kat McPherson's agent. And like I thought, McPherson's not interested. Her agent passed it along, it was a definite 'thank you, but no thank-you." He shrugged, face betraying his disappointment. "I thought that was likely to be the case, but I'd hoped...." 

Bailey frowned. It wasn't often someone he wanted to shoot turned him down. In fact he could only think of a handful of times it had happened in the last twenty years. 

"Did her agent say why?" 

Fenton shook his head. "Nope. Just that _'her client thanked you for the opportunity but would prefer to decline'."_

Bailey grunted in acknowledgement. "At least she's polite." He scowled to himself. He _knew_ he'd seen that girl somewhere before and now he wasn't going to get the opportunity to scrutinise her in person he could tell that that niggle of vague recognition was going to eat at him until he put a finger to it. 

It took him about two days to make the connection. He'd just finished shooting an editorial for _Tatler_ , and he and the rest of his crew had just arrived back at the studio in Clerkenwell when it suddenly hit him. Before he could lose the tenuous connection he'd made in his mind he stomped back in to his personal photography archives and pulled out a few of his portfolios from the early eighties, flicking through them with the kind of focused intensity that made him so very good at his chosen profession. 

His crew eyed his retreating back curiously, but they were used to his idiosyncrasies and it wasn't until his "Hah!" of triumph echoed out the door into the main studio that Fenton was intrigued enough to beard the lion in its den. 

"Dad?" 

Ignoring his son's tentative interruption Bailey continued flicking through the old portfolio for a moment before he decisively slammed it shut and shoved it back on the shelf and then stomped past his son's enquiring face back into the main studio. But before Fenton could follow him Bailey whirled around to address his boy. 

"I want you to call that girl's people again." 

"What girl? Oh – you mean Kat McPherson?" 

His Dad nodded choppily. "Yeah. Get her to come down as soon as we can fit her in." 

Fenton sighed to himself. Sometimes his Dad was _impossible_. "But I explained this already to you, Dad. She's not _interested. At all."_

Bailey grinned toothily. "She will be." 

Fenton raised an eyebrow at him in mild disbelief and his father smirked at him in response. "Tell her that I knew her Mum and Dad. And that I've got the pictures to prove it. And if she agrees to come down, I'll let her see." He snapped his fingers. "That'll do it, right enough." 

His son frowned at him. "So you took pictures of her parents? Well, that might intrigue her, but why are you so sure she'll come for that?" 

Bailey hesitated. He'd made the connection the moment he'd realised exactly who McPherson reminded him of and had confirmed it with his quick flick through his portfolio. But it was obviously not common knowledge and he was reluctant to air the girl's secrets without her permission when she'd had never caused him any grief. 

"None of your business, lad. But she just will. I can pretty much guarantee it." 

Fenton waited for further clarification, but after a moment it was pretty obvious that it wasn't forthcoming. Whatever his Dad knew, he was keeping it pretty close to his chest. He sighed. "All right," he capitulated. "I'll give it another go. But don't be surprised if she tells us to sod off. Again." 

Bailey grinned at his boy. "She won't. Call her people. Today." 

Fenton rolled his eyes at his father. "Yes Dad." 

Bailey clasped him affectionately on the shoulder and gave him a little remonstrating shake. "Have faith, my lad. We'll get your dream girl into the studio sooner, rather than later. You see if we don't!" 

And ignoring his son's half plaintive rejoinder of "she's not my _dream_ girl, Dad," Bailey wandered off, whistling happily. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

_**Toward House, North London – August 2014**_

Kat was ensconced on the couch in the conservatory, basking in the sunshine while memorising her latest script when her mobile rang, the screen display indicating that it was her agent, which made her raise an eyebrow in surprise. Twice in three days was pretty unusual, unless Tor was actively negotiating for her regarding a job and it was with a definite sense of curiosity that she swiped the screen to pick up the call. 

"Tor. Back from Berlin already?" 

"Yes, I am, but that's not why I'm calling," Tor's usually plummy well-bred English voice was uncharacteristically hesitant and Kat's internal antennae pricked up. 

"What is it?" 

"David Bailey's studio called back. They _really_ want you to do that photo shoot." 

Kat almost growled. "Didn't they understand what I meant when I said that I _wasn't interested_? You did pass on the message, didn't you?" 

"Of course! But it seems Bailey is very keen, and his son said that he thought you might be interested in what Bailey can offer in exchange." 

The younger woman frowned. She didn't like the sound of that. Was he trying to _bribe_ her? "I can't possibly see what David Bailey might have in his possession that I would be even _slightly_ interested in." Irritation made her soft Scottish accent far sharper than normal and there was a brief pause on the other end of the phone while Tor tried to work out the best way to explain what Bailey's rep had communicated to her. 

It might be better just to blurt it out. 

"Kat. He said that he has pictures. Pictures of your Mum, and your Mum and Dad as a couple before they got married and that if you agree to the session you can have free rein to look through his archive and choose copies to take away with you." It all poured out of the older woman's mouth in a breathless rush and then she took a breath and waited for her client's no doubt indignant response. 

Kat had always been intensely reserved, and even Tor who had represented her now for almost four years, knew almost nothing about her private life, and even less about her past. But she did know enough to know that both of McPherson's parents were dead and that she had been brought up, at least in part, by her godfather. But that didn't completely explain the harsh intake of breath on the other end of the phone at her rushed explanation and then the almost inaudible gulp of air before her client replied, her normal soft voice harsh and jagged around the edges. 

"Tell him I'll do it. You know my schedule, Tor. Set it up as soon as you can." 

And then, without a further word of explanation or goodbye, she simply hung up. 

Tor pulled her smart phone away from her ear and stared at it in consternation. McPherson was one of the politest people she knew and for her to behave so abruptly…..she sighed to herself and determinedly pushed down at the impulse to pry. Whatever this was, it was clearly something that meant a great deal to her client and it was also something that was intensely private. And therefore, absolutely none of Tor's business unless it affected McPherson's marketability. Which at the moment, it clearly didn't. So it was none of her business. And keeping that firmly in mind she pulled up her contacts list. 

"Fenton? Tor Belfrage here. My client has indicated that she'll agree to your request for a photo shoot. But there will be conditions. _My_ conditions." 

On the other end of the line Bailey's son gabbled his agreement and Tor's eyes narrowed as she contemplated the legal forest she was going to wrap around this situation. Kat might have been pushed into doing this by Bailey and his associates but Belfrage was damned if any one of _her_ clients was ever going to walk into a situation where they didn't hold the advantage. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Please review!_


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _As always, British spelling abounds - here be dragons...._

_**Studio of David Bailey, Clerkenwell, East London - August 2014** _

Kat pulled to a stop outside the revamped industrial building where Bailey had his studio, cutting the engine of her BMW road bike with a flick of her wrist and engaged the kickstand, body on autopilot. For a moment she scowled to herself, allowing herself the relief of the expression as her face was still hidden behind the black plexi-glass of her motorcycle helmet's visor. She was very, very tempted to just start up her bike again and gun it out of there. But if she did she would never get to ask Bailey how he had known her parents, or see the pictures that he said that he had of them. And that pull to know more about her parents, to be able to talk to someone apart from Nick and the older employees at the estate about them, someone who had known them before she was born, but hadn't been as close to them as Nick and could therefore be objective? That pull was strong. 

She pulled off her thin black leather gloves impatiently, laying a caressing hand flat on the cooling top of the bike as she did so. She loved her bikes; she really did, even if she did acknowledge that they weren't exactly the safest form of transport to zoom around London on. But apart from Tamsin, the people who loved her had long ago ceased to try to dissuade her from riding and Tam was only so vehement because of the number of injuries she had had to assist on when she had undertaken a brief stint as part of the London air ambulance service during her training. The rest simply rolled their eyes and railed at her to be careful. The only who didn't was Nick, who simply smiled. 

He knew that trying to stop her riding was a forlorn hope, especially since it was her own father who had first put her on a bike, just as he had put her on a horse before she could even really walk. It hadn't just been Alec's personal inclinations either. The family hereditary estate wasn't a vast one by Scottish standards, but it was big enough, and as large chunks of it were near the coast and a greater chunk was hilly, the ability of even Land Rovers to cut across the country was limited, not to mention the damage that would be done to the fragile heather ecosystem by vehicles that heavy. Accordingly, the estate was usually traversed by foot, or on horseback, or by specially adapted quad bike as the vast cushioned tyres spread the weight and caused substantially less damage than any other vehicle would. So, her father had justified, it only made sense to have the heir to the estate comfortable on the back of a bike from the get go, as when she grew older she would have to spend a lot of time on one as she surveyed the land that would eventually be hers. She remembered that her mother had been consistently both unimpressed and amused by this justification; but had never made a serious attempt to lay down the law regarding her trips with her Dad out on horseback or on the bikes, either the two wheeled kind or the quad bikes. 

Initially she had been just a passenger, but by the time she was six years old she had her own pony, a short, stocky, hairy fetlocked schoolteacher of a Shetland called Dragon, whose temperament was as fierce as his namesake, and her Dad had found her an ancient child size rally motorcycle, which he and Nick had fixed up for her before she graduated to her own quad bike when she was eight. Those were some of her best memories of the estate, long days in the summer and colder, shorter ones in the winter, bundled up warm, or lightly dressed for the heat, following her Dad around the estate like a loyal puppy as he dealt with various issues, always explaining to her what he was doing as he was doing it, just the two of them. Now with the benefit of hindsight it was clear that as least part of his motivation had been a gentle form of teaching, an early introduction to the issues she would eventually have to deal with herself when she held the title and the lands, but she had also known that he simply liked having her there, liked having that time for just the two of them, which was undoubtedly one of the reasons her mother had never kicked up too much of a fuss about them gallivanting about the estate together on various forms of transport. So Tam had been on a losing battle regarding the bikes from the start as no-one was ever going to have been able to permanently pry Kat off of them. And especially not after her Mum and Dad's death. To Kat, motorcycles and horses both represented happy memories, freedom and the potential for escape, as well as the delicious negation of worry that you could achieve when you were going so fast that the only thing you could afford to concentrate on at that particular moment was your ride,whether equine or mechanical, lest you lose control and suffer the consequences. And there was no way that even Tamsin's furrowed brow was going to persuade Kat that reducing the potential danger was worth the loss of that.

She sighed. She was procrastinating and also fooling herself, really. Despite the temptation, there was no way she was going to walk away from an opportunity to talk to one of the few people in London who knew who she really was and who had known her parents. So she might as well simply suck it up, and get on with it. The quicker she got the horrendous-ness of having her photo taken over, the quicker she could talk to Bailey and peruse his archive. With that decision made she threw her leg over the BMW and, after securing the wheel lock in place, gathered up her helmet and her bag and made for the door to the studio.

Fenton had been on tenterhooks ever since they had received confirmation from Tor Belfrage McPherson's dragon of an agent, that her client had agreed to attend his Dad's studio for a private photo shoot. As agreed, the whole affair was the epitome of low key, only he and his Dad and Marla, their long-term make up and hair person present, rather than the standard three assistants and various interns that would usually waft around the studio during a high profile session. Fenton had enquired as delicately as he could if there was anything they would be able to do to make the experience more comfortable for McPherson, aware that they were essentially shanghaiing her into co-operating with his father's whims by the means of emotional blackmail and also if he needed to make provision for any entourage. McPherson's agent had simply snorted.

"Kat have an entourage? God no. She doesn't even have a manager or a PA. I keep telling her she needs to at least part share a PA with one of my other clients, but she's resisting it, even though she's becoming far too bloody high profile these days not to have someone help out." The older woman had sighed gustily over the phone, clearly frustrated. "But she's nothing if not stubborn, as you'll undoubtedly find out. And you won't need anything special for her, just water or tea. Just don't make any kind of fuss. She _hates_ that kind of attention. It's one of the reasons I'm amazed that she agreed to this in the first place, even with the incentive your Dad is providing." 

It was clearly a statement that begged an answer but Fenton had merely murmured noncommittally, unwilling to be drawn into speculating as to what McPherson's motivations might be. But he felt at least a little better now that he had a handle on what to expect from McPherson herself - low key, no entourage, very much in keeping with a woman who avoided the limelight outside her professional obligations as much as possible. But despite that he was still taken by surprise on the relevant morning when he turned round in response to a noise in the doorway, mug of tea in hand, to be confronted with the vision of a solemn looking Kat McPherson standing just inside the entrance to the studio, dressed in tight, scuffed black biking leathers, helmet and backpack held casually in one slim fingered hand, combing out that tumult of sable hair out of its braid impatiently so it fell in casual abandon around her shoulders. She stilled as she registered his presence and the green eyes he had so admired on film widened and then narrowed as they focused on him, a faint look of wariness seeping into her gaze.

He took a step forward, juggling his tablet and his mug of tea as he did so and tried to extract a hand with which to offer a greeting.

"Ms McPherson? Hi, I'm Fenton Bailey, Bailey's primary assistant. Bailey is running a little late today, but if you would like to come in and get settled, we can get Marla to get started on hair and make-up so we don't waste any time." Fenton had automatically settled into the standard meet and greet spiel that he used for all of their clients, but even as his mouth spouted forth the familiar words he couldn't help but greedily take her in, his experienced photographer's eye, used to dealing with beautiful women every day, raking her over, and not coming up wanting. 

She had amazing skin, that was almost the first thing he noted, incredibly pale, clear, almost porcelain in tone, and luminous in its pallor. Her hair was thick and wavy, a little wild, and a brown so dark it was almost black, but shimmering with deep auburn highlights where the light hit it as it fell across her shoulders in a tumult that just begged you to bury your hands in it. She was tall, not quite full on catwalk model tall, probably about 5ft 9, but a lot of that seemed to be legs that even the battered bike overalls couldn't hide. And to his masculine appreciation she clearly had curves in _all_ of the right places. But it was her face that really transformed her from an attractive woman to a genuinely beautiful one, the kind of woman who would hopelessly capture your attention as she stalked by. He wasn't quite sure which of her features it was that tipped the balance, or just the combination of that slightly too stubborn chin, the finely arched dark brows over those thickly lashed moss green eyes with those almost Slavic cheekbones, but it was a knock out blow, distinguishing her from the more normal common-or-garden prettiness and catapulting her way into the realm of adjectives such as fascinating, arresting or just outright stunning, in a haunted, almost Gothic kind of way. 

But just now, he realised, she was looking more like a deer in the forest, about to take flight, than any kind of femme fatale, and he belatedly came to the conclusion that his staring probably wasn't helping matters. She was also regarding his outstretched hand faintly dubiously, probably because he looked like he was about to drop his tea and/or his tablet at any moment. Hastily he withdrew his fingers and wrapped them more securely around his tech, essaying what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

"Ms McPherson?"

She blinked and finally looked up from his hand to meet his eyes, hoisting her bag and her helmet over one shoulder as she did so.

"Yes, sorry." Her voice was quiet and low and softly accented, with a distinct Scottish lilt. "Do you have somewhere I could get changed, Mr Bailey? I've brought my own clothes as I was instructed."

Inwardly Fenton winced. It was clear from the lack of inflection in her voice, and the resigned look in her eyes, that this was not a woman who wanted to be here. He had hoped that she might have changed her mind about being photographed but it was very obvious to him that she was clearly only attending under sufferance. 

"Of course," he replied easily, exerting all of his charm to try and put her at ease. There was nothing worse than an uncooperative subject. His Dad would go nuts if that was the case. "And please, call me Fenton. Bailey's my Dad, not me." He stood back and gestured for her to follow him, the soft clunk of her footfalls in those heavy biker boots echoing off the polished concrete floor of the studio and then muffled as they moved onto the wood next to Marla's domain. 

The older woman looked up from her own tea and perusal of her magazine as they approached and stood to meet her subject, her experienced eye instantly picking up on the tension in McPherson’s face, and her subdued demeanour. With a warm smile of her own she bustled forward, ignoring the slight flinch from McPherson as she moved into the younger woman’s personal space and laid a reassuring hand on her arm as she both greeted her and guided her towards the make up chair. 

“Ms McPherson, lovely to meet you. Mr Bailey, and your agent have already been in contact about what kind of look we are going for, but if you have any changes you would like to have me make, please let me know….” Fenton bit back a smile at the rather overwhelmed expression on McPherson’s face as the older woman efficiently bundled her charge into the seat, quashing any objections that her slightly shocked subject might have with her burbling good humour and before Marla could corner him as well, beat a hasty retreat before the whirlwind. 

When Fenton went looking for him, Bailey was exactly where he expected, in the archives, looking over some photos on the light table. When his son padded up to his side and looked over the shots he noted to his shock that they all seemed to be of McPherson. Except, on a second glance, it clearly wasn’t McPherson, but a woman who looked so like her that she must have been a close relative. He must have made some form of noise, for Bailey glanced up at his son, easily reading the question on his face.

“Her mother,” he clarified softly. “Back in ’81.”

Fenton gazed down at the photos again, his curiosity intensely piqued. There were seven or eight photos, all black and white compositions in line with Bailey’s trademark style. The woman in them was tall and leggy, slightly curvier than was the current 2014 standard for models, but dressed in fairly conservative evening clothes, draped with furs and dripping with jewels. It had obviously been an haute couture editorial shoot, for a winter edition of a magazine, by the styling, with a faintly Russian theme. It suited the model perfectly; all of Siberia was in the sweep of her cheekbones, the pallor of her skin and the slightly exotic slant of her light coloured eyes. She eyed the camera with almost palatable disdain and there was a sense of crackling intelligence in her glance. Even over thirty years later and as an image on celluloid she had presence and Fenton could tell that in person she would have been formidable. And although the girl that was presently being made up in their studio was considerably more tentative than the fierce image on the table in front of him, Fenton could definitely see the strength of the resemblance between mother and daughter.

“She’s beautiful,” he commented to his Dad.

Bailey smiled softly to himself in reminisce. “Yes, she was.”

Fenton’s ears picked up at the slightly wistful tone in his father’s voice and he glanced up at him. “Was?”

His dad shrugged - a melancholy twist to his lips. “She died,” he clarified shortly. “A long time ago.” He ran a caressing finger down the lines of the girl’s face captured for ever on celluloid. “She was gorgeous. Fiery as anything. And god was she clever. Wit like a razor that one. But she never really liked the modelling. I could tell she wasn’t interested.”

“Then why did she do it?” his son prodded. 

“It was simple, she needed the money. She was a Ph.D. student at Oxford at the time, and she had to support herself.”

“Couldn’t her family help her out? She looks like she came from money.”

Bailey chuckled, a dry amused noise. “No. Don’t let those aristocratic cheekbones fool you, my lad. She was blue blooded right enough, but her parents were White Russians. You know,” he clarified at his son’s confused look. “Russian aristocrats who fled Russia when the Revolution happened? They must have been pretty young when it happened. She never told me but I think they stayed in France for a bit, as she spoke French like a native, and then came over here later after world war two. I do know that she was an only child and a bit of a late surprise for her Mum and Dad, she told me that much.”

Fenton was a bit surprised by the amount of information. His Dad didn't usually communicate much with his models beyond the surface details that he needed to get his shot. There were only a few that he actually knew much about, like Kate Moss that he had shot so many times that they had long ago become friends. But it seems that this woman had been an exception to that rule, which went some way to explaining why his Dad had been so insistent on getting McPherson in to do the shoot. 

There was a moment of silence as they both stared contemplatively down at that elegant arrogant face, caught forever in two dimensions, before Bailey sighed quietly to himself and gently put the precious images back in to their protective covers, before closing the book and slipping it back into its space in the archive.

“So,” he turned to where Fenton was waiting patiently and smirked. “You've met your dream girl now – disappointed?” 

Fenton rolled his eyes. “Dad, I _told_ you. She’s _not_ my dream girl.” But then he grinned despite himself. “But if she was – hell no. In fact I think she’s even more gorgeous in person than on-screen.”

Bailey chuckled dirtily and clapped his son on the shoulder. “Well then! Never say your aged father doesn't do nice things for you. Say ‘thank you, Dad’.”

Fenton smirked back at him and obediently parroted, “Thank you, Dad.” They grinned at each other for a moment and then Fenton abruptly sobered. “But Dad, a word of warning. She’s clearly not very comfortable being here.”

Bailey eyed him appraisingly. “Stiff, eh?”

“As a board”, his son confirmed gloomily. Bailey shrugged in response. “Ah well. I did sort of emotionally blackmail her into coming in, so that’s to be expected. I’ll just have to use some of the old Bailey charm on her, see if I can get her to open up.”

Fenton raised an eyebrow at that. His Dad was a charming old bastard, right enough, but he didn't think even Bailey at his most soothing was going to be enough to melt the icy veneer of discomfiture that McPherson had clearly been projecting. 

And so it proved. 

Fenton watched in increasing despondency as the shoot went on and even his Dad’s famed charm failed to make its mark. McPherson watched her photographer like a rabbit crouching beneath the shadow of a predator, all silence and quivering tension. That tension didn't lessen as Bailey attempted to sooth and cajole her, in fact it seemed to get worse. McPherson had been quiet and wary from the beginning, but Bailey’s practised spiel that he usually used with models, teasing and telling her how beautiful she was, and how sexy, didn't seem to draw her out, but rather had the opposite effect, making her more and more closed off, those famous green eyes shadowed. Even her body language was awkward, the innate trained grace of the dancer that she clearly was preventing her from actually being clumsy but there was a choppiness to the way she moved that clearly telegraphed how uncomfortable she felt.

Eventually there was silence apart from the click of the camera as even Bailey gave up trying to persuade her to relax, a silence that pressed down on the denizens of the studio and made Fenton wince internally. It had been years since he’d seen one of his Dad’s shoots go this badly. Usually, however uncooperative a subject, Bailey could coax and cajole and seduce them into co-operating. But not this time. And the worst of it was that McPherson was not being actively uncooperative. It was just clear that she was simply so incredibly uncomfortable with the whole experience that it was screaming out in every move she made and every micro expression that flitted across that beautiful face. And the irony was that as much as she clearly hated having her photo taken, the camera clearly loved her. Just as Fenton had always expected. His Dad’s shots flashed up on the monitor and it was all there, the way the light hit her skin, the planes and angles of her, those huge eyes telegraphing every melancholy emotion. And that actually made her failure to respond to them even more frustrating, not less. But his Dad didn’t stop, just kept on taking shot after shot, and Fenton knew that until Bailey got the one shot he wanted, the one that actually captured the elusive spark of personality that he was looking for, he wouldn't stop, despite how wretched the whole process was becoming.

“I knew your Mum, you know.”

Bailey’s voice dropped into the silence like a stone into a pond, leaving ripples in its wake, but he didn't stop, just charged on regardless. 

“She came stalking in here for the first time in, hhmm, 1977 it must have been. She was only 18, just starting her degree at Oxford, but by god, you’d never have known it.”

Bailey moved around his subject, his voice and the click of the shutter the only sound in the quiet studio. “She had presence. She really did. And a walk like a queen as well. She could cut any man down to size with just one of those icy glares of hers. I saw it happen a lot. In fact it happened to me as well.”

The silence had changed now, somehow heightened. Fenton glanced over at McPherson and there was a different kind of tension there now, a focused, listening one, as she hungrily soaked up his Dad’s memories. And as she did so, her body language slowly, slowly, relaxed as she forgot to focus on how uncomfortable she was feeling and concentrated on Bailey’s reminisces instead.

“Of course, I tried it on with her,” the photographer continued, in answer to his subject’s unvoiced question. “I mean she was stunning, and although I was together with Marie at the time, I was never exactly good at staying on the straight and narrow. That didn't start until I met Cath in 83’.” He chuckled breathlessly to himself. “But your mother wasn't having any of it. God, she had a temper on her. I remember one time when I got a bit pissed and tried to kiss her she full on punched me.”

Fenton was hardly breathing, watching as his Dad’s words wove a spell and like Sleeping Beauty McPherson slowly awoke, that wary stillness fading from her face and her body, life and animation sparkling in her eyes as she listened. She tucked herself up on the stool she was perched on, pulling her oversize jumper down over her legs and clasping her hands around her knees, head cocked to one side as she focused and there was something almost achingly vulnerable about her expression. 

“But she didn't hold grudges either, and she was fucking funny when she got going.” He paused from his shooting for a minute and grinned at McPherson, and although he didn't get a smile in response she did look directly back at him, resting her chin on her uplifted knees, those huge green eyes bright under winged brows and there was a softness in her expression now, a wistfulness. 

“Oh – and when she got angry –Jesus, she could swear like a sailor! But always in Russian or French, I couldn't understand half of it.”

There. There was a definite wisp of a smile at that, sparking just for a second on her full lips, those amazing eyes bright with amusement and then there was a ‘click’ as Bailey caught it and moved on. “She had it all, you know. All the beauty – all the body as well! And she was so clever, mind like a fucking trap, that girl had.” Fenton couldn't help it; he was fascinated by the transformation. The awkward stiffness of earlier had completely gone now, and what was clearly McPherson’s natural fluidity of movement had come flooding back in. She shifted on the stool as Bailey moved around her, twisting with a flexible grace that indicated years of dance training.

“She could have been one of the ‘Supers,’ the Supermodels, you know,” he clarified at his subject’s enquiring look. “Just like Brooke Shields, or Cindy Crawford, or Linda E. She had all the attributes, and she had that extra something that makes a model memorable.” He shook his head. “But she just wasn't interested. There were quite a few moments when I could tell she was on the verge of something great, something that would make her a household name but each time she didn't go through with it.” He moved around to McPherson’s back and she angled her head back over her shoulder to follow him with her gaze, hair hanging down over her cheekbones, bisecting her face. * _Click_ * went the camera again. “All she wanted to do was to make enough money to pay for her Oxford undergrad and then for her PhD. And that was in some bloody great honking subject that I can’t remember.”

“Astrophysics.” 

McPherson’s voice was so quiet that Fenton was even sure he had even heard her properly, but Bailey clearly had and he nodded an acknowledgement. “Yeah – that’s right. She used to bring these huge books with her to the studio or these really obscure academic journals and read them and make little notes in red pen. All the other models would have _Vogue_ , or whatever and she would be sitting there working her way through some form of scientific paper written in Russian.” He chuckled to himself. “You know, I once asked her why she bothered since she was so beautiful she could go out and get a Mrs Degree as soon as she wanted. The look I got from that one!! If I’d been combustible I would have burnt up on the spot.” 

And there it was - the second smile of the day. Brief, fleeting, but unexpectedly sweet. And Bailey smiled back at her as he captured it on camera.

Fenton wouldn't say that it was by any means plain sailing from that point on, but it was certainly easier. Bailey kept talking to McPherson, subtly directing her movements by shifting around her so that she turned to face him, keeping her distracted by story after story about her mother that she listened to intently, those huge eyes in that pale face fixed focused and intent on him as she drank them all in. Bailey didn't try and make her _do_ anything, just let her shift and react to him and the stories that he was recounting to her, capturing the expressions that flitted across that increasingly mobile face with shot after shot. 

Fenton wasn't too sure how long the session lasted but it became very clear to him very quickly that whatever McPherson’s mother had been to his Dad, she certainly hadn't been just one of his regular models. There were too many stories for that, too many anecdotes that had clearly occurred over a long period of time. This had been a woman that his Dad had spent a considerable amount of time with, a woman, Fenton grasped in dawning realisation, whom had been his Dad’s _friend_. And listening to all these stories he realised that his Dad still missed McPherson’s mother a little, even all these years later. There was too much affection in his voice when he recounted all of those stories to her daughter for anything else to be the case. Which explained at least a little to Fenton as to why his Dad had been so keen to meet McPherson once he seen her picture. McPherson bore a remarkable resemblance to her late mother, and for Bailey it must be like having a well beloved ghost walk back into his studio. 

A soft musical laugh broke his introspection and he looked up in surprise at Bailey and his subject. McPherson had pulled her knees up to her chest again, hugging her hands around them, her chin resting on their tops, but this time her whole body language radiated laughter at whatever ridiculous story Bailey had been regaling her with. Her hair was cascading in a tumult down her back and she was grinning, her eyes sparkling, her whole demeanour telegraphing amusement and in that moment she was more than slightly irresistible, all that charisma that made her such a formidable presence on stage and screen pouring outwards. He found himself abruptly dry mouthed and swallowed harshly, even as his Dad took one final photo and then lowered his camera with an answering grin and an expression of supreme satisfaction. 

“Well. That’s that then.” McPherson stilled, but that smile still hovered around her eyes, her lips twitching, and Bailey’s expression softened as he regarded her. 

“By God,” he sighed wistfully. “You've got a look of your mother about you.”

Her answering smile was smaller, and a little melancholy. “I know. People who knew her say that all the time.” The soft Scottish voice was tinged with sadness. “In fact, I sometimes wonder if there is anything in me of my Dad at all.”

Bailey shook his head decisively. “Don’t be stupid. I knew your Dad. Not as well as I knew your Mum, of course “, he added judiciously. “But well enough to track the resemblance. You've got his eyes, and that tinge of auburn in your hair, that’s all him. And the stubbornness in your chin. And your skin as well, of course. Your Mum had that classic Russian colouring, but you, you've got that whole Celtic luminosity going on, and that’s all your Dad. Although by the time I met him he’d spent too much time outside for it to be so obvious, but I saw photos of when he was younger and his skin was identical to yours.”

She smiled in response and made to slip down from the stool. Bailey reached out a hand and automatically helped her down.

“Right, girlie. Now we've got that out of the way,” he nodded to indicate the shoot. “I've got a proposition for you.” McPherson gave him an enquiring look and he inclined his head towards the entrance to the Archive. She paused, and then followed him with a shrug. Fenton exchanged a brief glance with his Dad, respective eyebrows telegraphing ‘ _do you want me to come_ ’ and signalling ‘ _no_ ’, before he went to clear up the debris left by the shoot.

Bailey ambled his way across the studio, pausing to grab them a fresh mug of tea each before he pushed open the heavy door into the archive, leaving it ajar for McPherson to follow him. Once inside he switched on the lights and Kat’s eyebrows raised at the sheer size of the place, serried shelves stretching out for a good 10 metres and at the neatly ranked portfolios, stacked up by the dozen on each level. It was very clearly the product of a lifetimes work. Bailey waited patiently while she took it all in, busying himself with the neat stack of standard sized document storage boxes taking up a sizeable portion of the large photography table, the glass top lit from below. After a moment she slipped over to his side and watched with interest as he pulled portfolio after portfolio from the topmost box. 

There were five boxes in total and going by the example of the top one there seemed to be around ten to twelve bound leather books in each. Muttering to himself, Bailey sorted through them until he unearthed the one he was looking for with a grunt of satisfaction placing it carefully on the table between them, one hand absent-mindedly caressing the soft texture of the black hide. The book was very plain, just unadorned black calfskin, with protective metal corners and across the white label stuck to the front there was a scrawl of rough penmanship that just said “ _Life_ ” and then under it “ _1977_ ”. Kat glanced down at it, confused and then looked back up at Bailey quizzically. He smirked gently at her obvious bewilderment and ran an affectionate hand over the cover of the folder again before he flipped it open. Kat blinked down at the first picture and then stilled as realisation dawned. 

It was her mother. Her mother so much younger than Kat herself was now, still young enough that her cheeks were still rounded with adolescent plumpness, and her limbs were still coltish. But there was no mistaking the lines of her face, or the ferocious directness of the stare that radiated out of the shot and her daughter’s heart ached with an instant pang of love and memory.

Bailey didn't wait for her to speak but simply reached out a finger to gently run it down the line of her mother’s face before flipping on through the folder before Kat had a chance to voice her objection. But her protest died in her throat as she realised that they were _all_ of her mother. Her mother dressed in couture and in casual clothes, in what were clearly editorial shots and in Bailey’s trade mark black and white portraiture style. Her mother glaring, or laughing, with her face as still as a mask, and as animated as a clown, her mother dancing like the ballerina she had always been, or still and as poised as a statue made of alabaster. Shot after shot after shot and Kat found herself making an almost grunt of shock as the sheer number of images overwhelmed her emotional defences. To her horror, she found her eyes flooding, and angrily lifted her sleeve to blot away the tears that insisted on treacherously overflowing their way down her cheeks. 

From just outside her field of vision she saw a white handkerchief being offered in Bailey’s gnarled hand and reached out blindly to grab it, swallowing frantically, hunched over and roughly attempting to erase the evidence of her minor emotional breakdown. It took a few minutes, but eventually she was able to straighten and meet Bailey’s concerned gaze with a tremulous smile. 

“Sorry.”

He shook his head. “Don’t be sorry, girly. I wasn't thinking. I should have realised what seeing all this without any warning might do to you, what with you losing them both so young.” He sounded genuinely regretful and she nodded silently. It was sort of freeing to be able to talk to someone outside those who had known her from childhood who actually knew who she really was. The protective camouflage of Kat McPherson was one she was glad that she had created, but at the same time the veil of secrecy she maintained over her past meant that she could never talk to anyone except Nick, Eils and Tam about her parents, and how much she still missed them. And she was reluctant to burden her friends with her sorrows. And as for Nick, she sometimes thought that he missed the two friends he had so intimately entwined his life with even more than she did, and she hated the sadness that rose up in his eyes whenever she mentioned them, so she tried not to. But Bailey was an almost stranger, but one, who, she thought, from the sympathetic look in his eyes, might actually understand.

She reached out to touch one of the pictures. In it her mother was _en pointe_ , dressed in some ragged miniskirt and top combo that undoubtedly had been horrendously expensive. But she wore it with an absolute casualness, as if it was just something you would wear to go down the shops, or dance in. Kat smiled a little to herself. That was something she always remembered about her Mum, that fierce sense of style and the way she could make jeans and a t-shirt look like couture, and couture like something one would wear to do the garden. 

“I didn't even know she was a model until you said.” Bailey looked a little surprised at that, but said nothing. She shrugged. “I knew she did a little bit, but I thought it had just been one or two shoots years ago. She certainly wasn't doing it full time when I was a wee girl.”

He smiled. “She kept it up a little. But you’re right, after you were born, she cut right back. And by that time she had that job lecturing at the uni up in Glasgow.” She nodded in agreement. “But there was one thing she did keep doing and that was this.” He gestured casually to the folders and the boxes strewn across the table.

She frowned. “What _is_ all this?”

The photographer grinned. “I thought you’d never ask! Right,” he rubbed his hands together and started unpacking all of the boxes, waving her away when she tried to assist him. By the time he was finished the boxes were piled haphazardly on the floor and the table was full of neat stacks of folders. From the annotations scrawled on the front covers, each folder was something to do with the same project “ _Life_ ” which was followed by a year. And the dates spanned 1977 until…1997. The year her mother and father had died….

Kat sucked in a breath, feeling as though someone had punched her in the gut as the realisation dawned as to what this project probably was. Bailey was watching her closely and as he saw her eyes widen in stunned comprehension he grinned, gap toothed and mischievous, before he explained, waving his hands to illustrate his story like the raconteur he was.

“I really liked your Mum, you know. Anas was something special, right from the very beginning. And she was so, so _smart_.” He shrugged. “Of course, I was an idiot when I first met her, I tried to get her into bed, but after she’d slapped me a few times I gave up on that one and we became…friends, I suppose.” He smiled a little wryly. “I didn't have many female friends that weren't girlfriends, but Anas…Anas was unique. She was such a naturally talented model, but she really didn't give a shit, and she was the opposite of the fawning I used to get.” Kat gave him a raised eyebrow look at that comment, but he just grinned. “I was a good looking lad when I was younger, girly! Don’t knock it!” He smirked at her and despite herself she grinned back, amused at his cheek. “So your Mum and I hit it off really quickly and because she was so popular we did a lot of work together. She wasn't part of the scene outside the studio really, because she wasn't interested in drugs, or even really in drinking. She was too focused on her studies for that. But one thing she did like was the art of fashion, and art in general, and we used to talk about that, photography, and art. Stuff like that. So one day we were chatting during a shoot and I sort of said to her that what I would really like to do one day was the portrait of a life, a consistent body of work to capture the passing of time, of aspects of ageing. I was already thinking more about portfolio work at the time and I just really liked the idea of that, of bearing witness to the slow change of someone over the period of their existence. She loved the idea as well, and before I knew it she had volunteered. And here you have it.” He gestured to the piles on the table.

“So this is _all_ my Mum?” McPherson sounded a little stunned and Bailey couldn't blame her. There were twenty piles on the table, covering 1977 until 1997, and each year had a minimum of two portfolios. Some had as many as four. The number of photographs involved numbered literally in the thousands. It was an epic project, even as truncated as it had tragically been and Bailey was very proud of it, even though he’d never done anything more with it, after the final picture in the final book in 1997 had been taken, that of the simple white headstone in that quiet family graveyard on a lonely cliff on the west coast of Scotland. 

“I had her permission to take extra copies of any of the shots she did with me commercially, and every few months we would do a brief portrait shoot, just the two of us. And then when she met your Dad she brought him along once or twice as well.” McPherson had been staring dazedly at the piles of folders but at that her eyes jerked up to meet his in astonishment. 

“My _Dad’s_ in there as well?”

Bailey smirked at her reaction. “Yup. Not as much as your Mum obviously, but enough. Hell, you’re in there once or twice, in utero certainly, I've got some great shots of your Mum when she was pregnant, and even a few times of you as a baby. But once you reached about one she stopped bringing you. She didn't want to invade your privacy like that. But we talked about it and we’d agreed that she was going to ask you once you hit thirteen if you might like to come down and do some shots with her. She thought you might enjoy it, as a sort of mother, daughter thing. And as a teenager you would be able to make up your own mind about the privacy issue.”

Kat nodded slowly. “I would have. But,” she swallowed. “They died when I just turned eleven.”

Bailey’s smiled turned bitter-sweet. “I know, lass. I know. I doubt you remember, but I was at the funeral.”

Kat shook her head. “I don’t remember much about it, to be honest. I’d only just got out of the hospital at that point and,” she shrugged, “everything was a little bit of a blur.”

“I do. It was one of the fuckin’ saddest things I've ever attended. They were both so bloody young. And unlike the rest of us reprobates, the two of them were so ridiculously clean-living, I sort of expected them to outlive _me_ at the very least.”

She nodded absently, but it was obvious that she was distracted, part of her attention on the portfolios in front of them, a tightly constrained hunger in her gaze. Bailey followed the direction of her eyes and smiled to himself. 

“Feel free to look at them as much as you want. I’ll be off soon, but I’ll get Fenton to hang around for an hour or two if you need him too. But before I go there’s that proposition that I wanted to talk to you about.”

She dragged her attention from the serried stacks of folders with an almost palatable effort, glancing up to meet his gaze. “What is it?” There was still a hint of reserve in her tone, but she was infinitely more open to him that she had been at the beginning of the shoot.

“I want to continue the project,” he stated baldly. 

She frowned, not quite comprehending. “What project? Oh…,” she stopped in mid sentence as she realised what he was referring to and reached out a long fingered hand to tap the cover of the portfolio in front of them. “This project.” 

“Yes,” he confirmed. She nodded.

“And you want to….what? Use me as your model?” she queried, brow furrowed as she considered.

“Yes.” He barreled on before she could object. “I’d shelved the whole thing obviously, after your parents passed. But when I saw that screen shot Fenton had of you,” he shook his head ruefully. “By _god_ , you looked so like your mother. And today,” he smiled a little. “Let’s just say you remind me of her more than a little in person too. And I thought it would be….apt, is the best way I can think of to describe it. I definitely wouldn't want to continue this thing with anyone else and if you say no, I’ll shelf the whole lot again. But I thought you might consider it, when you had seen this,” he swept out a hand to indicate the massive body of work in front of him. “And I think,” he smiled again, a little sadly this time, “that it’s something that your Mum might have liked the idea of.”

Kat tilted her head to consider both him and his proposition. Her initial reaction was to baulk as she always did when anyone suggested that she did anything that intruded on her private life away from the film set or the stage. But then she re-considered. This was very different from a few shots to illustrate a men’s magazine, or endless publicity shots modelling clothes. This was _art_ , and not even commercial art at that, as Bailey had clearly never published any of these photos, as she would have known about it if he had. And it had very obviously been a project close to her mother’s heart, if she had kept coming down to see Bailey to continue it, even once she essentially retired as a model and moved to Scotland to be with her husband and to lecture at Glasgow Uni. 

“What would you do with the photos? And what kind of time commitment would you be looking for?”

Bailey had been waiting patiently, silently letting her think, but at her questions he brightened, body language becoming bouncy and expressive. “Maybe nothing. Or maybe, in the future, with your permission, an exhibit or maybe a book, of you, and your mother, and your Dad. But I have to admit, girly, that this is basically an indulgence for me, more than anything else. It’s not meant to be commercial, in that I have no intention of making any money from it. If you wanted I could give you co-copyright over the pictures, so that I’d have to get your permission before I could publish them,” he reassured her. She nodded.

“I’d like that. And how often would you want me to come?”

He shrugged. “Maybe every three months? For a quick shoot? But definitely every six months at the out most. We can co-ordinate any time you’re available. And if I can’t be about to shoot, I’ll get Fenton to do it. He’s not too bad, my lad,” he conceded affectionately. And then grinned as a thought struck him. “In fact, when I pop my clogs the two of you might just continue it! Think of that? _That_ would be a project!”

She smiled at his enthusiasm and shook her head, dismissing his contemplation of his mortality. He chuckled at her scepticism. “I’m getting on a bit, girly. I have to think about these things!” She shifted uneasily and sensing her discomfort with the topic, he changed tack. “And in exchange for your participation I promise you all the stories about your Mum and Dad that I remember. And I’ll make a copy of all of these,” he gestured to the table, “and archive it properly for you. It’s only right you should have a copy anyway. In fact,” he shrugged, “after meeting you today, I decided I was going to give you a copy of the lot of them anyway.” He stilled her protests before they could start. “It’s only fair. And who’s going to appreciate them more, eh?” 

She swallowed, almost moved to tears again by the gesture. “Thank you.” 

“It’s nothing.” He noticed the conscious effort she was making to hold herself together and diplomatically changed the topic again. “So what do you think?”

She took a moment to pull herself together, considering as she did so. It was, she realised, something that she actually really wanted to do. It felt like a way to continue her Mother’s legacy, to somehow get closer to her. And she thought that much missed presence might have approved.

“As long as it’s private…” she hesitated and then committed herself. “I think I’d like to do it.”

If his smile had been bright before, now it was incandescent, taking decades off his face and letting her see for a minute the rogue he had been famous for being before maturity and Catherine had calmed him down. “Excellent! That’s great, girly. And I promise you, it will be private unless you say otherwise. In fact I’ll get my lawyers on it, get them to transfer all of your Mum’s photos into joint copyright between us, so that if anything happens to me, you still get a say. And I’ll get these copied for you as soon as I can.” He went to move to the door. “Do you want to stay and look at them now?”

Kat considered the piles of folders. It would take hours to go through them all and she had a distinct feeling that it would be a somewhat emotional experience. And she would rather not end up bawling her eyes out in the middle of a photography studio amongst strangers, even if they seemed like perfectly pleasant people. No, that would be a vulnerability too far. She shook her head.

“No. I’ll wait.” She made to move to the door to follow him, but then paused. “Does anyone else know?”

“Who you are and who your parents were, _milady_?” he teased.

Despite herself she twitched and made a face. Sometimes, especially after not hearing it for so long, her title sort of _stung_ when someone addressed her by it. She looked at him and he smirked, amused, before his gaze softened. “No. No one. Not even Cath. And,” he went on before she could interrupt. “I have no intention of telling them. You've built your own life, without having to deal with all of that _poor little rich girl_ bollocks you would have had to put up with from the media if everyone knew your background, and you've done bloody well too. It’s not my place to interfere in that.” 

She blushed a little at the compliment. “Thank you,” she responded quietly. “I just…”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, girly. I get it. And anyway, your Mum was my friend. And I respected the hell out of your old man. The least I could do would be to extend a bit of courtesy to their only child.” He held open the door and gently ushered her out in to the main studio. “But enough of that. Can you spare five more minutes?”

She nodded cautiously. “Good,” he continued, buoying her along on a wave of his irrepressible good humour. “Come and meet my son again.” He grinned wickedly. “He has the most awful crush on you, and,” he snickered to himself. “Watching him attempt to talk to you without tripping over his own feet is going to be highly entertaining!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I am sincerely grateful for any and all reviews or kudos any of my readers would like to provide, if you see something you think could be improved or spot an error, please let me know as this piece is entirely self beta'ed._


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Please accept two chapters for the price of one...._

_**Toward House, North London - Early October 2014** _

"You're going."

Kat looked up from the book she was reading, confused by her house mate's sudden interjection. 

"I'm what?"

"You're going." Eils bounced over to her, waving a leaflet and threw herself down on the couch beside her as she shoved the pamphlet in her house mate's face. Bewildered, Kat plucked it out of the blonde's hand and tried to make sense of what her friend was twittering on about. 

' _Pole dancing!_ ' It advertised. ' _Come along to our fun and friendly exercise classes. Girls only, every Wednesday and Friday_.' Maybe she was mistaken. She skimmed over it again. No, it was definitely advertising pole dancing classes. What on earth was Eils thinking? 

"Pole dancing," she gave her friend a severe look. " _Really_?" 

Eils shrugged. "You and Tam promised that we could do anything we wanted for my birthday this year, and I choose this. So yup, pole-dancing." Glancing back at Kat's extremely sceptical expression she rolled her eyes and twisted on the couch to face her house mate. 

"Come on! It'll be fun. And it's just girls anyway. And you love to dance, so why is this different?"

Kat opened her mouth to answer, and then paused, the logic of Eils' position striking home. It was just dancing after all, and she did commercial and hip hop classes all the time, as well as ballet, so was it really that different? It wasn't as if she intended to do it in public. And Amanda would probably approve as she had been encouraging her to further explore her sensuality and a session learning to pole dance might tick that box. And she and Tam _had_ promised Eils. She glanced back at her house mate's pleading face. Eils had now progressed onto stage two in her pathetic face repertoire, huge blue eyes wide and beseeching and Kat felt her residual resolve to resist melt in the face of the genuine pleading underlying the exaggerated facial expression.

"Oh, all right then. I'll try it," she raised a remonstrating finger when Eils started to bounce in glee. "Once. But, in exchange," she grinned evilly. " _I_ get to tell Tams what we're doing."

Eils pouted. " _Nooo!_ It's _my_ birthday! And I want to watch her face when I tell her."

Kat shook her head definitely. "Nope. If I have to do this, I get to tell her. But you can watch when I do," she granted magnanimously and grinned at her friend. Eils bounced some more.

"Excellent! Pole dancing - here we come."

Kat shook her head in mild despair. "God forbid." She could just tell she was going to regret this.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

_**Evening Standard Awards, The Palladium, London - December 2014** _

“Tom mate! Well done!”

Tom grinned at Ben’s over enthusiastic and slightly drunken congratulations, and returned the other man’s hug with affection, thumping him solidly on the back before releasing him.

“Thanks! I have to admit –I am _quite_ pleased.” They both glanced down at the stone and bronze of Tom’s Best Actor award for _Coriolanus_. “But if you want I could lend it to you, and you could pair it with yours and make a set of bookends.”

Ben sniggered. “Maybe later,” he allowed. “I think you are meant to have the obligatory period of leaving it in the downstairs loo first.”

Tom smirked. “Absolutely. But enough pontificating. Let’s go and get another drink.”

Ben nodded his enthusiastic endorsement of that plan and the two of them made their through the crowd, their pace somewhat laggardly due to the necessity of accepting congratulations from various well wishers as they went. By the time they reached the bar Ben was feigning dehydration and ordered champagne for them both. Passing one of the flutes to Hiddleston he ceremoniously touched glasses with him. “To you, Mr Hiddleston,” he intoned, “on this occasion of celebrating the fact that your outrageous ego is likely to become ever more inflated. _Esto perpetua!_ ”

Tom snorted into his glass and then solemnly raised his flute in a reciprocal toast and drank. It was an excellent vintage but he wouldn’t have expected anything less from Cumberbatch. “Good to see you too, Cumberbitch. God, it’s been _ages_. By the way, _The Imitation Game_ is looking quite good.”

Ben grinned. “It is, isn't it? Fingers crossed. Box office is pretty good too. And yes, you’re right; it has been a while. When was it last, September?” 

“Hhmm, August, I think. We met up when you were recording that radio drama with Kat McPherson.”

Cumberbatch’s grin widened, eyes twinkling. “So that’s why you remember!” He shook his head in mock admonishment. “Thomas, Thomas, Thomas. Are you attempting to stalk the delectable Ms McPherson?”

To Benedict’s extreme entertainment, Tom twitched, and looked momentarily discomforted. “No, of course not!” He responded with some heat. “I just recall the date.”

Ben smirked into his champagne flute before he took another swig. “Reaally,” he drawled. “Of course I believe your obvious and rather pathetic excuse, Thomas.”

Tom rolled his eyes at his older friend. “I may, perhaps, have hoped that she was going to be here tonight, so that you could introduce me,” he clarified, in his most dignified manner.

Ben sniggered and then shrugged. “Well, that was a fairly reasonable expectation, considering that she was nominated for _The Duchess_.”

“And I may have been _slightly_ disappointed that she couldn't attend. After all,” he gestured towards his award, now sitting in splendid solitude on the bar. “Best Actor, Best Actress….it seemed somewhat fitting.” 

Ben sniggered. “Obviously, it was _fated_ ,” he drawled sarcastically. He straightened up. “But seriously, it’s a pity she couldn't make it, it would have been good publicity and it would have made her agent happy. And although she would have had to grin and bear it for that part of the evening, at least she would have had a good dinner and a chance to catch up with various bods as compensation.”

“Why couldn’t she make it? Is she working?”

“Hhmm, yes. She did intend to come, but circumstances dictated otherwise. I gave her a call when she texted me to let me know that she couldn't make it. She’s currently in the States. She’s doing a last minute guest appearance on _Sleepy Hollow_ and shooting has over-run. So she’s stuck.”

“I was surprised that she asked Dom Dromgoogle to receive it on her behalf if she won.”

Ben shook his head. “I’m not. Kat really believes that the ensemble is what makes a stage performance work. So having Dominic accept the award on behalf of the rest of the cast makes perfect sense.”

Tom considered that for a moment and then shrugged his acceptance. “That’s fair enough, but it might be a little too self-effacing for the industry these days.”

Ben sighed. “So I keep telling her. I think it’s partly an excuse, so that she has a reason to eel out of going to this kind of thing.” He gestured to the assembled room full of Theatreland’s great and good, drinking and laughing and raucously networking. “It’s not really something she enjoys.”

Tom raised a sceptical eyebrow. “Is she actually that anti-social? How on earth does she manage at work then?”

Ben smiled. “Oh she’s not exactly _anti-social_. She’s fine in small groups, or in the kind of ensembles you get when putting together a production, or one on one. She just finds this kind of things rather stressful. She doesn't like large crowds where she's expected to network.” He gave his friend a wry look. “Not everyone is as much of a party animal as you and I.”

Tom grinned and waved to the bartender for a refill for them both. “True. But I’m starting to get paranoid that she’s avoiding me.”

Ben smirked. “Well, considering that she doesn't actually _know_ you that might be stretching things a bit far, don’t you think? For as much as I hate to break it to you, Thomas, not _every_ woman on the planet is desperate to meet you. Quite a percentage of them admittedly. But not _every_ one. Kat just happens to fall into the group that isn't that bothered." He smirked at his friend again. "I.e. she has taste." Tom made a mock offended face at the snark. "But I’m sure the two of you will bump into each other eventually. It’s a small world, and she won’t be able to avoid these things for ever, not with how high profile she’s getting.”

Tom based Benedict one of the refilled flutes that the bartender had so helpfully provided. “Well, I look forward to it. But if it doesn't happen soon, you’re going to have to engineer an introduction on my behalf, mate. My curiosity won’t stand for anything less.”

Ben grinned, “I’ll see what I can do. But for now, let’s drink and find someone suitably entertaining to flirt with.”

Tom raised his flute in salute. “Indeed. To you, Mr Cumberbatch. Good hunting! May you find the first Mrs Cumberbatch soon.”

Ben drank eagerly to that toast. “Fingers crossed. I just hope that I _do_ find her soon - otherwise my Mother will _never_ stop demanding grandchildren!”

Tom smirked at that. “You and me both, mate. You and me, both! It’s the curse of being an only son I think. But enough of that. Drink! And just to start the flirting part of the evening, I’m pretty sure that’s Gemma Atherton over there. And I think she might be giving you the eye.”

Ben looked across the room to where Tom was indicating, his eyes narrowing with interest as he zeroed in on the stunningly pretty brunette. Sure enough, she was casting glances his way, one beautifully arched eye brow raised challengingly. He grinned, suddenly buoyed up by a bubble of irresistible good humour.

“Well, it’s terribly bad manners to keep a lady waiting, wouldn't you agree, Thomas?”

Tom nodded sagely as he grabbed another empty flute from the bar and snagged a half empty bottle of champagne as he did so.

“Absolutely. So shall we?”

“Lets.” And with that Tom set off out into the crowd like a long legged Moses, parting the melee of celebrants and well wishers with the sheer force of his personality.

Ben chuckled as he followed in Tom’s determined wake. One thing you could always say about Hiddleston, life was never dull with him around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Please review!_


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _This is a British spelling zone, unfortunately. For all of those dear readers who may be American spelling pedants....here be dragons..._

**_Home of Steve McQueen, Amsterdam - December 2014_ **

"Mike, mate, it's not going to work. Even if we were to start production tomorrow, we still can't fit the shooting schedule in before you are contractually required to be on set for _X-men: Apocalypse_. We're going to have to put _Music Man_ on hiatus until you are free."

There was a heavy sigh on the other end of the line, and when his friend replied the frustration and exhaustion was clear to hear in his voice. "I really tried, Steve. I got Connor to talk to Legal to see if there was anyway they could push production back, or if we could get out of the first call clause but," there was another exhalation of air. "He says there's nothing they can do."

"I know, mate, I do. And it's not your fault."

"But it _is_."

"So, I suppose you’re the one who decided to get pregnant, or the director whose wife is pregnant, or responsible for any of the other reasons they've given you for why they decided to pull forward principal photography on _X-men_ by another four months?" 

His friend's remonstration was wry and gently mocking, and despite his best intentions Mike felt his lips twitch in a rueful smile.

"Well, no," he allowed. "Being that I don't have a wife, or anyone to get pregnant. But still, mate," he hesitated for a moment and then continued in a rush. "I feel like I'm letting you down."

Steve chuckled reassuringly down the phone. "Don't worry about it. _Music Man_ will keep. After all, it's a period piece, so it's not as if it's actually going to date."

"But what about the funding? Or the investors? Or..."

"Mike," Steve cut him off before he could spiral in a full blown rant. "It's okay. Tessa will sort all of that out, you know it."

"But what are you going to do? We've been working on _Music Man_ for the last nine months." 

"Yes, we have." Steve allowed. "But we can pick it up again later when you're free. The work we've done won't be wasted. Plus, it's not the only project I've got in development, Mike, you know that. So I'll just switch my focus." 

"That easy." Fassbender's tone was more than slightly sceptical and Steve couldn't blame him. Mike knew better than anyone just how much of his time and effort Steve put into each of his projects.

Steve shrugged, even though he knew Mike couldn't see it. "That easy," he replied, his tone very mild.

Mike closed his eyes for a minute at the calm in Steve's voice. He didn't want to offer what he was going to offer, but if it was the only way his friend could continue with his current project he was willing to make the sacrifice. 

"You could," he paused, steeling himself for what he was going to say. "You could just re-cast my role." The second he said it he wished he could take it back. _Music Man_ was a passion project for both he and Steve, and the idea of anyone else playing the male lead, Robert, was a knife in the gut to him. But he was willing to give it up, if that's what Steve needed.

"No." Steve's reply was instant and unequivocal, and despite his best intentions Mike felt his knees go almost weak with relief. He really, really didn't want that part to go to someone else.

"No," Steve repeated. "We wrote that script with you in mind, you've had huge amounts of input, you've done the research….no." He emphasised. "Robert's your boy. There's no one else that I would be happy playing him. As I said before, we can wait, Mike. So stop stressing. This is just one of those things that happen sometimes. A pain in the arse, certainly, but not life threatening. So relax."

On the other end of the phone Mike chewed his bottom lip, on one hand so grateful that Steve had dismissed his offer immediately and on the other just so twisted up and irritated with the whole situation. He didn't want to do another X-men film so close to making the last one. It wasn't that he didn't like the role, because Magneto was a character he was proud to have brought to the screen, and it would mean he would get to see James again, and Jenny and Nick and all the rest of that mad crew. But it was also a big studio franchise movie, with all of the attendant pressures and all of the bullshit and he really didn't have the patience to deal with that so soon after making the last one. All he wanted to do was to get back to the reason he loved making films in the first place, that chance to work with great directors on stories he was passionate about, and to bring to life new and complex characters. And for him, the best way to get that experience was to work with Steve. He'd been looking forward to it for _months_. 

Plus, if he was being honest, he was really looking forward to filming near home as well so he could actually sleep in his own flat for once. And to working with Steve's crew, all of whom he knew well, enough that he could truly relax among them. Nobody would be a stranger, and so nobody would require him to be constantly on his best behaviour the way he had to be when he was trying to leave a good first impression on new people or to a studio. Steve's crew was like a family, and lately he had really been missing that, that casual intimacy with people he knew well. It was so fuckin' tiring to have to constantly perform. But there was no use whining about things that couldn't be changed. He bit back a sigh. 

“Yeah, mate. I hear you. But you'll let me know how every thing is going on, right?”

“Of course.” Steve's rumbling bass was reassuring. “Don't worry about it, Mike. It'll be fine.”

"Okay." He took a deep breath and let it out again, trying to release his frustration and irritation as well. It didn't completely work, but it helped, just a little. Unbidden, he felt his eyes well up and he scrubbed a hand across his face roughly, furious with himself. What the hell was wrong with him? Crying over nothing like some kind of luvvy. He was just tired, that was all. Tired and frustrated and, if he was being honest, a little bit lonely. Too many sets, too much travelling, not enough time at home. That was all it was. So, he needed to man up a bit.

"Okay," he repeated. "But, Steve - I really am sorry about all of this."

He could hear Steve's deep sigh over the line. "It really is fine, mate. Let it go. We'll talk soon, okay?"

Mike scrubbed his hand across his eyes again, still emotionally off balance. "Yeah," he replied gruffly. "I'll have a few days before I have to do anything now, so I'll give you a call tomorrow."

Caught by the exhaustion in his friend's voice, Steve acted on impulse. "I've a better idea. If you're free, why don't you come out to ours for a day or two? Bianca and the kids would love to see you again. Dex has been asking when 'Uncle Mike' is going to be coming for months."

Mike chuckled dully down the phone, automatically about to make a polite refusal and then stopped. Why shouldn't he? He had a few days free, he hadn't seen Steve for months or Bianca for even longer and one thing he could be guaranteed in Amsterdam was a certain freedom from the press, who never bothered Steve or his family. Actually, on consideration, it sounded like a great idea.

"That," he paused, as he gathered his words and pushed them through the emotion in his throat. "That actually sounds great."

"Good. Come on over then, whenever you want."

Mike swallowed again, feeling a little lighter already. "Tomorrow evening good for you? I can bring the bike over, get the Eurostar."

"Yeah, that's good man. So I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah. All-right. Probably sometime after 7, if that's okay?"

Mike could hear the smile in Steve's voice as he confirmed. "After 7 is fine. We'll keep some dinner for you. I'll cook."

Mike laughed quietly. "God forbid! I think I've changed my mind if I'm going to be subjected to the famed culinary exploits of Steve McQueen."

They sniggered together for a moment. "Fine, fine," Steve acquiesced. "I'll ask Bianca to cook. So I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow." Mike confirmed and with mutual goodbyes they hung up.

In Amsterdam Steve pressed the button to take his phone off speaker with a thoughtful look. Bianca slipped past him where he was sitting at the kitchen table, affectionately brushing his shoulder with her hand as she did so. 

"Was that Mike?" 

"Hhmm." He confirmed, twisting the seat around so he could look at her. "I invited him to stay with us for a few days, if that's okay."

Bianca shrugged. She was used to the ever revolving groups of guests, artists, actors and fellow collaborators that were a part of their life together, and it had long ceased to bother her, if it had ever initially done so. And Mike was one of her favourites. And so good with their kids. She leaned over to drop a kiss on the top of Steve's head. "Of course. When's he coming?"

"Tomorrow night, probably." 

Something melancholy in Steve's tone sparked Bianca's concern and she enquired a little anxiously. "Is he all right?"

Steve's lips pursed as he considered her question. "I'm not sure," he noted slowly. "I think he could do with a break. To be honest, sweetheart," he looked up at her where she hovered in front of him. "I think he might be lonely."

She looked down at him, slightly taken aback. Lonely? That didn't sound like the Mike she knew, who was one of the most self reliant people that she had ever met, always the life and soul of the party.

" _Really_?"

Steve smiled at her scepticism inherent in her question. "Yes. I think so."

"But he's always been so independent, so self contained." She frowned. "So, what's changed?"

Steve tilted his head to one side as he considered. "I think," he commented slowly, "that Mike is finally starting to realise that a rolling stone gathers no moss and that he might actually want some moss, someday."

Bianca frowned at him. That was cryptic even for her terribly cerebral husband. "What does that mean?"

Steve looked up at his woman, his wife, the mother of his children and his constant source of inspiration and encouragement and reached out to abruptly tug her in between his spread knees, running his fingers up over the delicious line of her thighs and curling his hands around the delectable curve of her waist. After a moment of confusion she smiled down at him, running her hands down over the curve of his skull, cradling the back of his neck in her fingers. He turned his head and pressed a gentle kiss on the inside of her forearm where it lay on his shoulder, and just enjoyed the warmth and feel of her for a moment before he replied.

"I believe that some part of Mike, even if he doesn't admit to himself, is starting to realise that he needs something else in his life other than a constant changing parade of film sets and award shows. Something permanent. Something, or some _one_ , that he can rely on, other than just himself."

She stroked the back of his skull as she considered that, and he leaned back into the gentle caress of her fingers in lazy pleasure. After a second, she clearly came to the same conclusion as him and her smile flashed out, a little mischievous. 

"You mean that Mike needs a girl? Mike, the most commitment phobic man I have ever met when it comes to his romantic relationships, Mike whose longest relationship was when he was seventeen, and who has spent the subsequent twenty years shagging his way around the entire planet, one night stand or short term relationship after another, needs a girl?!"

Steve nodded, the humour in his smile belaying the seriousness of what he was saying. "He does. But he needs a _woman_ , not a girl. Someone who will stick around in the middle of the madness. A long term partner."

Bianca regarded her husband with narrowed eyes. There was something in the expression on his face….some element of amused calculation..... "You think you know who that should be!" she accused. "You want to set him up! Mike Fassbender, the biggest cocks man on the planet, and you are trying to match make him!" Her tone and the look on her face were so incredulous that Steve couldn't help but laugh heartily in reaction, leaning forward so his forehead rested against the softness of her stomach for a moment to calm down. When he could catch his breath he leaned back to look up at her and she smiled down at him, highly amused by the ridiculousness of the situation. That her husband should be trying to match make Mike, who was frequently voted one of the sexiest men in the world, was totally ludicrous. But funny. And she noticed he hadn't tried to deny it.

"Do you not think he can find his own girl?" she queried, teasing.

He grinned up at her, cheeky. "Of course he can," Steve acknowledged. "But I doubt it will be the _right_ girl."

"Oh, and you so conveniently know the _right_ girl, do you?" she enquired archly.

He shrugged. "I might," he confirmed modestly. "I might not. And if I do, it'll be a long term project before I introduce them, I promise you that. He's not quite there yet. He's still on the verges of thinking with his dick and not his heart and so there is no way I'm going to arrange a meeting until he's come to his own set of realisations." 

She smiled down at him, shaking her head fondly. "You are really serious about this, aren't you?"

He looked back up at her, suddenly solemn and then stood up to pull her further into his arms.

"I am," he murmured throatily at her as he nuzzled at her cheek with his nose, the slight roughness of his one day stubble rasping deliciously against her skin. "Who would I be, if I hadn't met you?" He kissed the side of her neck and her knees weakened as she dug her fingers into his shoulders to keep herself upright. "My inspiration. My strength." He kissed her neck wetly again, nipping gently and she gasped. "And he's my friend. He's like my brother." He dropped a trail of kisses across the base of her throat, laving her exposed collarbone with his tongue as he moved to the other side of her neck and she automatically tilted her head to give him access. He kissed her there, tenderly, and she could feel the shape of his smile against her skin. "And I want him to have that. Have what I have. Have a family, and maybe kids of his own." He kissed her again, inching up her neck. "Have that one person who is always there for you, that fixed mark you can rely on when everything else is always shifting." He kissed the curve of her chin, biting oh-so-gently at the skin, moving on so his mouth was just hovering gently above hers, lips almost brushing together as he spoke, the soft exhalations of his breath caressing her mouth. He leaned in to press the gentlest of kisses against her lips, just the briefest moment of connection and she shifted to go after him, to press her mouth against his full lips, anything to assuage that burning want that was starting to grow in her groin. But he leaned back, teasing and she rolled her eyes at him, unimpressed by his evasion. "And obviously," he breathed even as he brushed another kiss over her mouth, "I've already met the perfect woman, and he certainly can't have you." She laughed silently against his mouth at the ridiculousness of that statement. She was really only perfect to Steve, as she was only too aware of her own myriad flaws. But she loved that he still held that illusion. 

"But you think you know someone who might be able to be that person for him?" she enquired breathlessly, even as she squirmed slightly as the touch of his mouth on her cheek bone and on her temple. 

"I do." Ignoring her squeal, he suddenly shifted his grip around her waist to lift her up, spinning them both around to dump her unceremoniously on the table, muscling in between her spread thighs and his mouth on her skin suddenly considerably more serious. She laughed lowly, eyes sparkling as the evidence of his interest pressed against her inner thigh as he pushed lazily against her, and hooked an ankle around the back of his knee to pull him closer. He bit harder at the side of her neck, causing a pulse of delight in her groin and she gasped unable to stifle the reaction. She felt him grin wickedly against her skin.

I do," he confirmed. "But I don't want to talk about Mike right now. Now, I just want to know, when are the kids due back?"

"Not for another hour," she confirmed breathlessly. Steve chuckled, low and rough and full of delicious intent and her knees weakened even further. "Good." He used one hand to pull the material of her top off one shoulder and licked his way along the exposed skin. "In fact, I don't want to talk at all."

With an effort she pulled her neck away from his mouth, slipping a hand around his face to guide his mouth back up to hers, kissing him hungrily, tongues entangling. 

"I'm sure that can be arranged." She confirmed, between drugging kisses.

And with a laugh and a deep sense of gratitude that he had found this woman so many years ago, sparing a moment's pity for his still single friend, Steve put Mike's plight out of his mind and concentrated wholly on the woman in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Reviews are my life blood (at least as a fanfic author - so please let me know what you think!_


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _As always - I must warn of worrying British idiom and spelling ahead..._

**_Toward House, North London – December 2014_ **

When her mobile rang Kat was so engrossed in the enduring classic that was _Warrior_ (Tam and Eils always rolled their eyes whenever she made this pronouncement, but they had no taste. Tam didn't even like John Hughes films. Anyone who turned their nose up at _Sixteen Candles_ had no leg to stand on as far as she was concerned…) that she almost didn't answer. It was only when Anne-Marie's name lit up on the screen that she stirred herself enough to pause the film and pick up the call, intrigued. She counted Anne-Marie as a good friend these days, even though they didn't catch up in person as much as either of them would like, as they were both constantly busy and Kat was frequently out of London and indeed, the UK. But they maintained a steady stream of emails and texts and the occasional phone call and every few months or so they would squeeze out enough time to grab a quick coffee, or Anne-Marie would make dinner at the flat, especially if James was away on a shoot, and they would catch up on their respective news. But the last time they had met had only been a few days ago, so for her to call so soon was a bit unusual. So when she answered she couldn't resist teasing her friend, just a little bit.

"Anne-Marie! To what do I owe this _unexpected_ pleasure?"

Her friend laughed softly, appreciating the gentle dig. "Nothing sinister, I promise! I was just wondering if you are in London on New Year's Eve? We're staying at home this year and James and I have decided to throw a minor shindig, just a little one, for the _Bells_ , as he still insists on calling it." Her tone was warm as she gently mocked her husband's intrinsic Scottish-ness, still prevalent after so many years in London.

Kat chuckled. "Well, it just shows, you can take the boy out of Scotland, but you can't take Scotland out of the boy! I would love too, honestly, but I'm always back home for Christmas and Hogmanay and I'm already booked to attend our local ceilidh, so, I'm sorry, but I'll have to pass. Can I take a rain check though, and meet you once I'm back in town? I should be back on the 10th, any time after that could be do-able."

They chatted for a few more minutes to set a date and then ended the call, wishing each other a Merry Christmas just in case they didn't get another chance to speak before the 25th. Kat pressed play on _Warrior_ again, slightly put out that she had to disappoint her friend, but secretly glad not to have to make awkward conversation with drunken strangers on one of her favourite nights of the year. Instead she would be where she was meant to be, in the heart of the Toward estate, leading the estate ball/ceilidh, one of the two big parties that the estate held every year for their employees and close connections. It was always good fun and the vast majority of the people who attended had known her since she was a child so there was never any need for ceremony or awkward small talk. So, yes, she might regret letting Anne-Marie down, but to be honest, her party would be a hell of a lot more fun than making polite conversation and avoiding lechers at a London do.

On the other side of the call Anne-Marie put down her mobile on the table with a sigh and a moue of disappointment as she crossed Kat's name off of her prospective guest list, slouching back in her chair for a moment. But before she could move on to the next name she felt James' arms curl around her shoulders from behind in a loose hug and she leaned back against him in response, enjoying the warmth of his embrace. He rested his chin on her hair and then leaned down to kiss her forehead when she tilted her head back, absent-mindedly scanning the list of names on the table in front of her, one eye brow raised when he realised his wife had just struck McPherson's name off.

"Kat can't make it then?"

Anne-Marie shook her head. "She said she's going to be up North and she's already booked, so no."

James rocked against her for a moment, humming under his breath. "Pity," he commented lightly. 

Anne-Marie twisted round in her seat to look up at her husband, something in the tone of his voice bringing her instantly on the alert.

"Why?" she enquired, eyes narrowed suspiciously. James immediately dropped his arms and straightened and tried to look as innocent as possible, which, being that he was an award winning actor with a notorious baby face, was pretty innocent. But his wife had known him far too long and wasn't fooled. She poked a querying finger against his sternum.

"James McAvoy – What.Are.You.Up.To?"

He tried to maintain the innocent front, but the combination of 'the finger' and the mock scowl on Anne-Marie's face broke him, as always, and he sniggered, holding his hands out defensively in front of him, fingers spread, in a classic 'it wasn't me gov!' pose.

"Nothing! I promise."

Not convinced, she continued to glare at him suspiciously. It only took a moment before he cracked under the weight of her stare and smirked, shrugging.

"I just thought…if Kat was coming, and Mike's said that he's coming….I thought, well," he shrugged again, grinning at the expression of slow dawning horror on his wife's face. "I thought I could introduce them."

"No!! Thank god, she's not coming then!" She poked the finger of doom against her husband's chest again in her agitation. "I'm not having my poor friend subjected to Mike Fassbender perving all over her."

James grinned down at her. "He's not _that_ bad. He's a nice guy! You know that. And he's my mate, and he _really_ needs a steady girlfriend."

"No." She narrowed her eyes at him again. "Don't you dare even _think_ about it, MacAvoy," she hissed. He raised an eyebrow at her vehemence and she glared back.

“Yes," she grudgingly allowed. "Mike is a nice guy. In fact he's lovely, as long as you are a bloke, or clearly not someone he's going to try to sleep with, like me. But for single women?" She shuddered and then nodded decisively. "For any girl who is not looking for a one-night stand, Mike Fassbender is an emotional train wreck waiting to happen. And you are not inflicting that on my friend! Especially since she's not exactly a one-night stand kind of girl!"

James pursed his lips as he considered, and then semi-reluctantly conceded the point. McPherson, the few times he had met her, was pretty much the epitome of not-a-one-night stand kind of girl. There was that palatable reserve and the scary fierceness of her intellect, plus she was teetotal which certainly didn't help with the loosening of the inhibitions that usually prefaced most one-nighters.

Anne-Marie was still glaring at him and he lifted his hands up in surrender. "Fine, fine. I'll not try to match Kat with Mike."

"You better not. And anyway, what is it with you suggesting emotionally flattening men for Kat to be with? First Ben, then Mike."

He shrugged. "They're both really nice guys! And she seems lovely. I just thought they'd suit!"

His wife rolled her eyes at him expressively. "Just shows what you know. I love Ben, and I adore Mike, but both of them are like the iceberg that sank the Titanic, seemingly harmless on the surface and liable to cause havoc and destruction due to what you can't see."

"That's a bit harsh!" he protested. 

She fixed him with a withering look. "But accurate," she pointed out dryly. She stabbed the air in front of him with her finger again. "So lay off the matchmaking, Jimmy! You are _terrible_ at it. And in particular, lay off trying to match make my friends!"

He sighed and moaned for a minute and then conceded and Anne -Marie spun back to her list, feeling re-invigorated. That was her good karma for the day done, then. She looked down at Kat's name, neatly crossed out, and mentally shook her head. Mike Fassbender as a lover for her emotionally repressed and ridiculously passionate friend? _Really?_

She didn't think so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Please review if you can guys - especially if you note any glaring errors as I have no beta for this fic...!_


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Random author's note - to the best of my knowledge, the John Curry studio at the Actors Centre in London does not have a mezzanine in real life. And as always, please be aware that this is a Brit spelling and vernacular zone....you enter at your own risk...!_

_Actors Centre rehearsal rooms, London -January 2015_

“Steve McQueen to see Kat McPherson.”

The Receptionist looked up from her papers at his voice and after a heartbeat of recognition favoured him with a bright, professional smile.

“Yes, of course, Mr McQueen. And your appointment is for?”

“12.00,” he clarified. “But I know I’m a little early. Is it okay if I go in anyway?”

The competent looking red head checked something on her screen and then nodded. “It should be fine. Ms McPherson didn’t give any instructions about not being interrupted. But I believe she’s doing pre-production with the stunt coordinator for her next project so she might not be able to meet you just yet.”

Steve mused that over for a second. “I could go in and wait?”

She checked her screen again. “I believe that should be fine. She’s in the John Curry Studio upstairs.” She glanced up. “There’s a mezzanine level with a separate entrance if you want to wait for her there until she’s free.”

Steve nodded. “Thanks. That’s very helpful.”

A number of flights of stairs later Steve slipped quietly through the door on to the mezzanine above the main rehearsal space in the John Curry studio, the rhythmic noise of leather hitting leather that he had noted through the door the next level down not abating as he did so, welcome proof that he hadn’t disturbed whatever McPherson was working on. He made his quiet way to the edge of the balcony and collapsed comfortably into one of the seats, examining the sight below with interest.

McPherson was in the middle of the floor, dressed in a casual training outfit of black leggings and a sweat patched t-shirt, long dark hair tied up in a rough ponytail and an expression of focused concentration on her face as she responded physically to the mid-Atlantic accented commands being fired her way by the man holding the set of punch pads opposite her. There was a visceral level of aggression in the way she moved as she struck back, an unconscious fluidity and she was bloody _fast_ , far faster than Steve would have guessed that she might be. But then he recalled that she had mentioned that she had been essentially training in the martial arts for most of her life, which explained a lot of what he was seeing. Certainly the tow headed stunt guy she was working with seemed to be appreciating it, as there was a grin hovering around his mouth even as he barked out the combinations, and when he concluded the exercise by shouting out some form of complicated punch/kick/spin/elbow strike sequence he actually laughed out loud when she nailed it perfectly and at blinding speed and then shifted back instantly to a defensive position, gloved hands held up before her face. 

“That’s fantastic! Jesus! Girl, you’ve got some _game_.” He pulled off the pads, flexing his hands to stretch them, shaking his head in admiration. “I mean, Steve McMichael said you did, but still....”

“You didn’t really believe him?” Kat interjected dryly, peeling off her own gloves in return. 

He shrugged. “Well, he’s not exactly prone to exaggeration, but I had my doubts.” He gave her a purely professional once over. “There aren’t many actresses with your CV that have that level of martial arts ability.”

She nodded in acknowledgement. “True, But the martial arts came well before the acting, and I didn’t see the need to give one up just because the other picked up.”

“That’s a good attitude.”

She rolled her shoulders. “It’s just common sense. And I’m lucky enough to have got to the stage where I know I can source a class in my styles wherever I’m based and then just drop in. It keeps things fresh.”

“Yeah, I get that. So, it says on your resume that your main background is Jeet Kune Do and Krav Maga?”

“That’s right. Is that useful? Because I’m pretty adaptable by now if you need me to be, I’ve had a solid grounding in quite a few styles.”

“How’s your flexibility?”

“Decent. The other part of my training is in ballet, so I’ve always built stretching into my routines.”

The stunt co-ordinator grinned even wider. “Excellent. What about wire work?”

“I did a quite a lot for the _Hobbit_ films, if that helps.”

“It really, really does. I’m getting some ideas already.” He paused, and gave her another once over, still professional, but edged with something almost…competitive. “So you’re a Krav girl, right?”

“As I said.”

“So used to improvising, reacting, etcetera, etcetera.”

“Yes, I suppose.” She gave him a curious look. “Where are you going with this?”

He smirked. “What do you say to a little-one-on-one? There’s no way I’ll be able to ask you this once you’re under contract, because the insurance won’t allow for it, but I’m bloody curious to see how we stack up.” 

Steve saw McPherson stop, her head coming up and back as she considered the stuntman’s suggestion. She was obviously slightly surprised by the request. “I’m flattered,” she drawled after a moment, her soft Scottish accent flattened with confusion, “but don’t you think you’re rather overestimating my abilities?”

“Nope,” he shook his head. “I really don’t think I am. What grade are you anyway?”

She shrugged. “I’ve no idea. Most of my trainers have been ex-military, and they’re not particularly bothered about grading.”

Steve’s eyebrow went up at that, and by the look on the stuntman’s face he was equally taken aback. “Military. Really?”

“It’s a family thing,” McPherson declined to explain any further but instead ambled closer to her potential opponent, padding around him, obviously making some form of internal assessment. He turned to face her, his expression amused, but that quickly faded into anticipation as she gave him a quick, choppy nod.

“”One round only, Young.” She held up a finger. “Until tap out or lock, no further.” He nodded in agreement. “Found weapons allowable,” she held up another finger, “and please avoid my face if you can. We start rehearsal in three weeks and my agent hates it if I get visibly bruised up.”

James Young grinned. “I bet she does. But it doesn’t stop you from sparring does it?”

She shrugged. “No. But I do try and keep her happy when I can.”

James smirked. “Fair enough.” He made his way over to the side of the room and picked up four fighting gloves, and threw her two, which she pulled on efficiently, tugging the Velcro tight, and stretching and twisting her fingers to make sure that they were comfortable. From above, Steve watched silently. This was turning out to be a far more interesting morning than he had anticipated. The opponents moved back into the centre of the space, postures deceptively relaxed but eyes fixed upon each other. McPherson had her back to Steve, so that he couldn’t see her face, but the expression on the stunt guy’s face ( _Young_ ) Steve reminded himself, was focused and intent, and just a little eager.

“On my count of three, any time after,” she instructed, her soft voice artificially loud in the sudden stillness of the room. Young nodded.

“One, two, three.”

The final count fell into the quiet like a pebble into a still pond. Above the two combatants Steve watched silently, wholly fascinated. He somehow had expected the two of them to instantly burst into motion, but instead there was a beat of frozen stillness as the combatants stared at each other, neither quite willing to expose themselves by making the first move. When they did move to Steve’s eyes it seemed almost simultaneous, although he didn’t doubt that an expert would have been able to tell who had been the aggressor. But even McQueen could see that they had very different styles. McPherson was faster on her feet, warier, but perhaps more overtly aggressive, darting in and out to land a flurry of blows and low kicks that Young mostly deflected, the few that slipped through his guard eliciting only quiet grunts in reaction. He was marginally slower, but his blows were more powerful and he was clearly trying to back her into a corner, and block her mobility, forcing her to dodge around him. Unlike Young who used higher kicks, she never once kicked above her waist height, clearly careful of her balance because it was obvious even to Steve that once Young got close enough to use his superior height and body weight against her and pin her to the floor, it would be all over. As it was, Steve was surprised at how quickly the whole thing concluded. Young spun and kicked, McPherson dodged _in_ and _under_ his flying foot and kicked out at his supporting leg, he leapt back frantically to maintain his balance, stumbled and before Steve could see exactly what had happened McPherson had landed a fierce sequence of pummeling blows and Young was on his stomach on the ground with his arms somehow twisted in a lock behind his back and her knees and body weight pinning him to the floor. He bucked, trying to throw her off, and then attempted to use his legs to unsuccessfully wriggle out of her grip but she maintained the hold. 

“Tap,” she panted into the silence, her voice slightly hoarse with adrenaline, exertion and the effort of keeping him still. Young writhed one more time and then nodded. “Tap,” he grunted, his voice just as hoarse as hers.

Instantly she released him and backed off, twisting to her feet in one sinuous move. She watched him warily from a safe distance. Sometimes after sparring like this emotions ran hot and she didn’t want to risk a bad tempered attempt to prolong the match that might segue into something far nastier. But Young simply rolled over and gingerly stretched out on the floor, rotating his shoulder before clambering to his feet and gifting her with a ruefully amused smile.

“Told you I wasn’t underestimating you, girl.” 

She smiled a little and shrugged. “Thank you for the vote of confidence.”

Young shrugged back. “Well, you earned it.” She twitched a smile, watching as he moved around the room to gather up his gear. Upstairs, Steve took the opportunity to lean over the balcony and call out.

“Kat!” 

She glanced up, an expression of faint surprise on her face. “Steve! You’re early.”

Steve quirked a smile. “Guilty as charged.”

She smiled back. “Fair enough. But can you give me ten minutes to get changed?”

“No problem.”

By the time Steve made his leisurely way downstairs Kat had performed a lightning fast change into black jeans and a matching V-neck jumper, the whiteness of the skin of her throat in stark contrast to the sable of her hair and her clothing. Steve watched silently as she made her final arrangements with Young before the blond stunt coordinator left them, with one last admonishment to Katerina to try and avoid getting injured before she was due on set. Once he had gone Kat turned to Steve, one eyebrow raised enquiringly.

“You didn’t say what this was about on the phone this morning.”

“Can’t I have just wanted to catch up?”

She regarded him sceptically. “Steve, you never just “catch up”. You don’t have _time_. So what’s this all about?”

He laughed softly, the deep rumble of amusement echoing up from his chest. “Anyone would think that you’ve known me for a lot longer than you actually have, McPherson.”

She smiled slightly. “Your workaholic tendencies are pretty obvious,” she pointed out. He chuckled again. 

“True. And you’re right; I do have something I want to pick your brains on.” He reached into his bag and pulled out a dog eared sheaf of paper, roughly spiral bound and waved it at her with a flourish. She reached out to hold it still so she could read the title page and then glanced back up at him, green eyes wide with surprise.

“Is that…”

He smirked at her. “Yup. The almost-but-probably-not-final draft of _Rage_.”

“ _Really_?” She breathed out, incredulous.

He nodded. “Absolutely. Good enough excuse to catch up?” he teased. She rolled her eyes at him and reached out to grab the script he was enticing her with from his hands. 

“Gimme.”

He snickered. “Manners, Ms McPherson.”

She abstractly flashed a smile at him, even as she started pouring through the slightly battered pages, noting the various places it had been condensed, edited or extended since the last draft Steve had sent her by email a few weeks before. He chuckled and shook his head, already familiar enough with her tendency to veer into abstraction when she was absorbed with something new not to be offended by her lack of attention. 

“C’mon McPherson. Let’s go and get some tea. I think there’s a café downstairs where I can get a sandwich while you catch up.”

Twenty minutes later they were ensconced in a comfortable and discreet booth downstairs in the Green Room Café, where Steve demolished a plate of sandwiches and a coffee while Kat sipped at a large mug of tea as she worked her way through the amendments in the script, penciling her comments in the margins as she did so. Steve watched, amused, his mood a curious mixture of anticipation, his normal deep seated confidence and the slightest amount of trepidation. He wanted her to be impressed with the newest version of the script, not only because she had helped to provide the inspiration for its genesis and had been an active writing partner throughout the process (during which he’d developed a considerable respect for both her brain and her grasp of plot), but also because it was necessary for her to like it if she was going to be willing to consider his proposal.

Finally she finished and looked up to where he was sitting, multitasking as he waited by firing off emails on his iPhone. 

“So, what do you think?”

She smiled - small and sweet and the knot of tension in Steve’s gut abruptly relaxed. “I like it. The pacing’s definitely better, and you’ve absolutely pared it down, but there’s now a lot of room to play around and you’ve still kept the essence of it. And Rachel…she comes across really strongly.”

He nodded. “Rachel is really the heart of the piece. She’s both protagonist and antagonist so I had to work around that.”

She smiled her agreement, a little wryly. “She’s fundamentally schizophrenic at the best of times. But she’s fascinating despite that. It’s not that often you get to see a female character that multifaceted on screen.”

“Well, you had a lot to do with that. You and Bianca,” Steve commented mildly. McPherson grimaced, uncomfortable with the assertion. 

“Far less than you’re giving me credit for. I just made some suggestions, and maybe helped you with some of the background.”

“And proof read and critiqued every draft and rewrote big chunks of dialogue and sense checked most of the plot points…” he corrected her gently. He wasn’t a man who enjoyed sharing writing credit after the debacle he’d had with _12 Years_ , but he also wasn’t someone who refused to give credit where it was due. And McPherson had been a hell of a lot more involved in the genesis and drafting of the script they were both considering than she was willing to admit. She shrugged.

“Does it really matter? It’s your script Steve, not mine. So let’s not complicate the issue.” He shook his head at her continued denial but forbore to argue the point. She closed the copy of the script in front of her and ran a caressing hand across the front cover. Steve smiled inwardly. Despite her protestations she was clearly a lot more possessive of _Rage_ than she was willing to let on. All the better for him. 

“So – it’s pretty much there. Thanks for letting me be involved, I genuinely appreciate it. It’s not often I get to see a script through to final draft from its creative conception. It was a really interesting experience.”

He smiled slowly. “My pleasure. But it’s not finished yet. We’ve still got some work to do together, you and me.” 

She smiled, pleased at the prospect of being able to continue their creative partnership, but partly convinced he was just saying that to soften the blow of it ending.

“Hopefully. But in the meantime aren’t you due to start pre-production on _Music Man_ pretty soon? Are you looking forward to it?”

He shrugged. “I would be if it was actually going ahead.”

She frowned, startled. The last time they had talked everything had been in place. “What happened?”

Steve shrugged; regret briefly flickering across his face. “Mike got caught up in some contractual issues for the next _X-men_ film. They’ve brought filming forward,” he clarified at her questioning look, “and he can’t get out of it without being sued to high heaven.” He sighed. “He told me to re-cast, but I’d rather wait. I’ve spent too much time developing that project with Mike in mind; I don’t want to have to start again from scratch. Plus, I want to work with Fassbender again. It’s been too long since we’ve teamed up. So _Music Man_ is on hold until Fassbender and I can find space in our schedules for it.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

He shrugged again. “It’ll keep. It’s a period piece; after all, it’s not going to date that badly.”

“So what are you going to do now? Because there is no way that the hyper busy Steve McQueen doesn’t have some sort of plan in place,” she teased.

Inwardly he smiled. Unintentionally she had just given him the perfect opening to segue onto the subject he wanted them to discuss. He paused for a moment as he considered and then leaned forward to tap two fingers against the closed cover of the script in front of her. 

“This.”

She frowned a little, slightly confused and then stilled as his meaning became clear and glanced down at the script in confirmation. “This? You mean that you want to film _Rage_? But I thought it wasn’t ready?”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s almost ready,” he rumbled. “Almost. And the rest we can work on on-set and in pre-production.”

“But what about…” she stilled again as his casual use of we sank in.

“ _We_?” she interjected, sharply.

He chuckled. “Yes, **_we_**.”

She levelled him with a steady, remonstrative stare. “Steve, much as I appreciate the offer, you won’t have time to nurse an amateur script editor like me on set. You’ll be far too busy and you’ll need an expert to provide the support you need.”

He laughed again at her wilful blindness and shook his head slowly. “McPherson. You know, I like you as a person, but sometimes you really are rather thick.”

She scowled at him. “I beg your pardon?” There was an edge to her soft Scottish accent that told him he was starting to tread on thin ice and he chuckled to himself again before he replied. 

“What I mean, _Katerina_ , is that I don’t want you as a script editor. God knows I can always get another one of those. I want you as an actor.”

She stared at him uncomprehendingly. “As Tanya?”

Inwardly he sighed in frustration. She really did have an annoying tendency towards excessive self-depreciation. Why on earth would he come all this way to see her if he wanted her to play a minor supporting character? He could have asked her that over the phone.

“No, you idiot. As _Rachel_.”

For a beat they just stared at each other and then she leaned back against the padded back of the banquette and regarded him with bafflement. “ _Really_?”

This time he sighed out loud and rolled his eyes. “No. Of course not. I came all this way just to grab a coffee and show you a few changes in a script that I could have just as easily sent you by email.” She was still regarding him silently, her scepticism clearly written all over her face and he almost growled in frustration. “Yes, _really_.”

“But you’ve never seen my work.”

He shook his head. “Of course I have. I came to see _The Duchess_ with Ben Cumberbatch, remember? And I’ve seen a lot of your filmed work as well.”

“And from that you decided you wanted to cast me as the lead in your next film, a film that absolutely depends on the performance of the lead to work? Don’t you think that’s a little premature? Won’t your producers object?”

This time he frowned back at her. “I make my own casting decisions. Always. No one gets to tell me the artists who I can or can’t work with. And enough excuses, McPherson. I want you to do this. You provided the genesis for this whole project and of everyone I know you’re the woman who would have the most skin in this game.”

She ducked her eyes to break their stare off, suddenly shy, letting her hair fall around her face to shelter her face from his gaze and stared at the table for a few moments as she gathered her thoughts. Eventually she peered up at him from beneath her long fringe, the expression in those green eyes one of hesitant pleasure.

“Are you _sure_ , Steve? I mean it’s a great script, and with your profile you could have anyone you wanted.”

He nodded. “That’s true. But I want you, Kat. I think that you’ve got the skills and of course you know the subject matter. But more important than all of that, I think you’ve got the _heart_ for it. And we’re going to need that heart. It’s not going to be an easy piece to film.”

She nodded soberly in agreement. _Rage’s_ subject matter was brutal and the examination of violence, its effect and the meting out and receiving of it was at the very core of the script. And while she was quietly incredibly flattered that Steve thought she might be right for Rachel (a role she had secretly coveted ever since the character had begun to take form as a result of Steve and her respective brainstorming sessions) she did have a few genuine reservations.

She tapped the cover gently with her fingers as she tried to think of the right way to broach the subject. 

“I’m incredibly flattered, Steve. I really am. And I think that I’d like to do it. But, as I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, this is an area that hits pretty close to home for me.”

He nodded slowly. “I thought as much,” he noted quietly. “Right from the beginning, really. You knew too much about the subject for it to be anything other than a passion.” 

She smiled sadly in agreement. “It is. And let’s just say that I have my reasons. And doing this kind of work with you,” she paused. “Well, I’ve deliberately avoided doing this kind of piece before, because I wasn’t sure if I could handle it. And I’m just concerned that if I do this now I won‘t be able to cope and I’ll let you, and the rest of the cast and crew down.”

He looked at her for a moment in silence and then reached out one large, calloused hand to her, checking to see if she minded and at her hesitant nod, settled his palm over the back of her hand where it lay flat against the table on top of the script, his much larger appendage completely engulfing her fingers. 

“Katerina.” His voice was much gentler than she would have ever expected, all of his normal casual certainty reined back in reassurance. “I respect that you have your reasons. And I hope that one day you might be able to tell me those reasons and I would be privileged to listen if you want to talk. But I think that you’re underestimating how strong you really are. I think you can do this. And I think that maybe you _should_ do this. It might be a challenge, but,” he smiled at her; those brown eyes alight and warm with affection and the strength of his conviction. “Challenges are what make us stronger. You shouldn’t be afraid.”

“ _Noli timere_ ,” she whispered before she could stop herself.

He cocked his head in confusion, not having caught her comment. She smiled at him, a little sadly.

“Noli timere.” At his look of continuing confusion she clarified. “It’s Latin. It means _Don’t be afraid_. It was my Dad’s favourite saying,” she hesitated, trying to explain. “His personal motto, you could say.”

Steve smiled. “It’s a good one.” He regarded her warmly as he withdrew his hand. “So what do you think, McPherson? Will you do it?”

She hesitated, regarding the script in front of her as she considered. Could she? Should she?

“I think I want to, but,” she looked up at him anxiously, chewing on her bottom lip as she only did when she was under considerable stress. “Can I have a day to think about it? I need to talk to some people before I make the decision. What I don’t want to do now is to say yes and then screw it up later, so there are some people I want to check in with first.”

He leaned back in his seat and inclined his head in acceptance. “Of course. I wanted to lock you in before I set the wheels in motion, so I can give you the day. But not too much longer,” he warned. “I want to move into pre pre-production as soon as possible. What’s your availability this year?”

“This year? Well, I’ve got _Double Blind_ starting in a few weeks and that’ll take me until mid-May I think. But I should be free in June, or I can make myself free. I know Tor has some tentative things lined up, but nothing definite.”

Steve nodded slowly. “June. I can do June for pre pre-production. I already have the funding in place and I can get most of my usual band back together by then. Okay.” He stood up, not seeing any point in hanging around now he’d put forth his proposal. He knew she would need the time to mull it over, but he had faith that she would decide in his favour. And then, he mulled in satisfaction, he would finally get to utilise all of that fury, all of that fire he’d seen so trammelled in her portrayal of the Duchess and spread it all over his screen. He was looking forward to the challenge immensely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Please review! Any feedback, especially as I have no beta, is gratefully received._


	18. Chapter 18

_Counselling office of Amanda Carter –West London- January 2015_

“So what did you want to see me about?”

Kat didn’t answer her friend, therapist and sometimes she thought, the closest person she had to a mother confessor (even though she wasn’t catholic) immediately, but just continued to pace around the small crowded office for a moment, gathering her thoughts.

Amanda watched with restrained amusement, tapping a pencil on the folder she balanced on one crossed knee, only too familiar with her increasingly famous patient’s displacement activities after the two years they’d been working together. After a few minutes Kat ceased her perambulations, and reached into her backpack to pull out what looked like a slightly battered script which she held tightly in one hand as she curled up in the huge armchair opposite her therapist and fixed her with a steady look from those hypnotic green eyes. 

“Steve McQueen wants me to do a film with him.”

Amanda blinked at that bald statement, rather taken aback. In two years of regular sessions Kat had never once informed her therapist of a job she was considering before she had signed the contract. In fact she seldom mentioned her career at all, unless it had direct relevance to what she and Amanda were discussing. And she was so discreet that Carter generally had no idea what her client was working on unless McPherson informed her that she had to reschedule a session due to having to leave the country for filming or promotional purposes. But to Amanda that made perfect sense. Her client wasn’t the actress who was increasingly high profile, despite all of her efforts to ensure her private life stayed private. Rather, she was treating the _woman_ behind the actress, the funny, warm, wryly intelligent and unexpectedly sweet girl who had been so badly hurt that she wore her fierce reserve like armour, her aloofness like a shield against the world.

“Well, that’s a good thing, surely? Even I know how highly thought of Mr McQueen’s work is.”

Kat turned her head to look out of the window for a moment, considering, before she glanced back. 

“It is. A good thing that is. At least I think so. But it’s not working with Steve that I’m worried about. It’s the subject matter. Here. He wants me to play the character called Rachel. The lead.” She leaned over and handed Amanda the slightly dog eared script that had been lying on her lap. “You won’t understand until you’ve read this. I’ll keep myself busy until you’re finished.” She made to settle down and then paused as a thought struck her. “We do have time for this, right?”

Amanda waved away her concerns already flicking past the initial few pages of the script. “There’s no one scheduled after you this evening. When you called it was unusual enough that I slotted you in the last spot of the night so that we could overrun if necessary.”

“Right.” 

And with that the two women settled down to read, Kat working her way through _The Economist_ on her tablet (some of the habits she had developed at university had stuck, and anyway it was always a good idea to remain informed) and Amanda skim reading through the ring bound sheaf of paper that Kat had literally dumped in her lap. 

It took about thirty minutes for Carter to finish reviewing the script. She sat, looking at the last page, full of conflicting emotions, but the reasons for Kat’s unexpected request for a session crystal clear. To the best of her limited knowledge it seemed to be an excellent script. But there was no getting away from the fact that it was also a very dark one, and the subject matter skirted dangerously close to areas that her client unfortunately already had a great deal of exposure to. 

She glanced up. Kat was still sitting in the overstuffed arm chair across from her, but at some point in the last half hour had slipped off her shoes and curled her long legs up under her, bare feet hidden in the cushions, those shadowed eyes watching her with just a trace of wariness. Taking a deep breath, Amanda put emotion aside and pulled her professional patina around her and her face, when she met Katerina’s gaze, was calm and relaxed.

“So, what are you worried about?”

Kat shifted in her chair, rolled her shoulders and stretched her neck back to study the cracked plaster of the ceiling before she spoke.

“Whether I should take the part. But more to the point, if I take the part, whether I’ll have some kind of breakdown in the middle of filming and let everybody down.”

“Do you want to take the part?”

McPherson looked back down at her therapist. That was what came down to, wasn’t it?

“Yes. I think so. But not if it’s going to lead to disaster. I won’t do that to Steve. I won’t do that to myself either.”

“That’s understandable. Why do you think that might happen?”

Her client slipped her feet out from under her and hugged her knees instead, resting her pointed chin on her kneecaps as she regarded Carter solemnly.

“The subject matter hits pretty close to home.” Carter nodded in acknowledgement of the point. “And Steve,” she smiled a little. “Steve is notorious for not pulling his punches. I can’t go into this without being prepared to let him do his worst, without being willing to give him the depth,” she hesitated as she tried to encapsulate what she was thinking, “the _honesty_ of emotion he’ll want. And I don’t know if I can do that without touching too closely on my own raw spots. And if I do that, I’m not sure how much control I’ll have over my own reactions. Or how often I’ll be able to go to that place in my head without falling apart.”

“And you’re worried about how that will affect you.”

Kat shrugged. “To a certain extent I am, yes. But I’m more worried about the effect it will have on everybody else.” At Amanda’s querying look she hastened to clarify.

“Making a film is a hugely expensive business and can involve literally hundreds of people. All of who would be detrimentally affected if I was to start this process and then fall apart half way through. I’m not sure if it’s responsible of me to consider taking the risk. Perhaps I should tell him to find someone else.”

“Do you want to do that?”

“ _No_.” The response was instant and unequivocal and came straight from her gut, much to Kat’s surprise.

“Well then. I think you have your answer.”

Kat frowned. “It’s that simple?” Her tone was more than faintly incredulous and the accompanying raised eyebrow doubted her friend’s conclusion (and possibly her sanity as well).

“It is if you want it to be.” Carter confirmed.

“But what about...” Kat started to protest but before she could continue, Amanda interjected.

“You’re under estimating yourself again.”

The look she received at that comment was more than slightly narrow eyed, but Carter sailed serenely on. “We’ve talked about this. You are a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for. And this whole issue? You’ve developed a far greater tolerance than you seem to realise.” She leaned forward and fixed her client and friend with a firm stare. “You _can_ do this, if you want to, Kat. You _can_. The only issue is _do you want to_? You’ve managed to beat these ghosts. Don’t give them power over your decisions now.”

“You’re telling me not to be afraid.” For some reason McPherson seemed to find this amusing, a small smile blossoming on that beautiful face. Carter raised an eyebrow.

“Maybe I am,” she commented dryly. “Why’s that so funny?”

Kat shrugged. “Maybe because it seems to be becoming a theme. That’s what Steve told me too, when he was making his pitch.”

Carter smiled at her. “Wise words, then. Maybe you should listen to them.”

Kat sat up right in her chair. “Maybe I should. But if I did, if it got too much, would you help?”

Amanda regarded her client in surprise. 

“Of course. Why would you think otherwise? There are also lots of things we can do to help you prepare. We can work to set up some structures in advance to help you manage your response to the material, so that you can still access the emotions and the memories that power those emotions, but so that you’ll be able to compartmentalise those responses to an extent, so that they don’t bleed over as much once you have stopped working. There are a variety of ways we can do that, both physical, by giving you ways to focus and expel those excess negative emotions in a neutral way, like a punch bag, and by teaching you some thought patterns, some mantras you might call them, that will help you regain your emotional equilibrium once you’ve lost it.” She fixed Kat with a sincere stare. “It’s very do-able. I promise, Kat. It really is. And this whole process might be exactly what you need.”

Her client frowned in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s the perfect opportunity for you to lance some of these old sores. You get to confront all of these emotions that you’ve managed to shove down deep inside for years in a positive and controlled environment where no one will bat an eyelid no matter how extreme your reaction. In fact the more honest and brutal your reaction the more they will probably appreciate it. And you’ll be surrounded by people who you will, at least in part, be able to trust. They won’t judge. And by the end of it I think you’ll probably feel a hell of a lot better than you did when you started. Probably emotionally knackered, admittedly. And undoubtedly not that keen to do it again in the near future, but you won’t be afraid of what’s lurking in your psyche any more either.”

Kat stilled as the truth of Carter’s words impacted. She realised that the other woman was absolutely right. This wasn’t just an ordeal to be overcome, it was actually an opportunity. But she just needed one more bit of reassurance before she made up her mind.

“You’ll be there if I need to talk?” 

Carter smiled warmly at her friend. “Always,” she reassured her client, her voice soft with restrained affection and then grinned. “After all, I have to get my celebrity gossip somehow, and what better than getting it straight from the horse’s mouth!”

++++++++++++++++++

“Steve McQueen.”

_“Steve?”_

“Kat.” At soon as he recognised his co-conspirator’s soft, gently accented Scottish voice his heart rate sped up in anticipation. Would she do it? Or was he going to have to go searching for another actress to play a role that McPherson was perfect for?

_“I’ve had the time I needed to think…”_

“And?” Steve interrupted, too impatient to wait.

There was the sound of a soft chuckle over the phone at the speed of his response. _“I’d like to do it. I’ve have a few things I’ll have to discuss with you before we start, but – I’m on-board.”_

Elation rose up in McQueen like a wave and he bit down on the urge to do a mini dance of celebration in the middle of the street. “Excellent. That’s really excellent news, Kat.” He paused, suddenly curious. “If I can ask, what made you decide that you were going to sign up?”

There was the soft sound of an amused exhale again over the line. _“I think that’s the least of the things that you’re going to ask me to do over the next year, so yes, you can ask. It was what you said. That I shouldn’t be afraid. I talked to a friend and they agreed with you. So, I’m going to take your advice. Noli timere, Steve.”_

He smiled. “Noli timere, indeed. Well, that’s fantastic news. I’ll get Jenne to contact your agent to work out the details. Who are you with?”

_“Tor. Tor Belfrage at Julian Belfrage Associates. I’ll let her know to expect Jenne’s call.”_

“Good. Well. I’ll be going. I’ve suddenly got a massive to do list to get through if we’re going to start pre pre-production in June.”

She laughed softly over the phone. _“Absolutely. I’ll let you go. But Steve?”_

“Yes?”

_“Thank you,”_ the sincerity in the soft contralto was obvious and McQueen smiled to himself. 

“Of course. It is, and undoubtedly will be, my very great pleasure.”

She laughed quietly again. _“I’ll remind you of that when we’re on our umpteenth take of the final scene and you’re muttering in my face to ‘just get it right!’”_

He chuckled. “You do that. Okay then. I’ll talk to you soon. And Kat?”

_“Yes?”_

“Thank you as well.”

_“My pleasure. Bye.”_

“Bye.”

The line cleared and Steve smiled even wider as he shoved his mobile back into his pocket, his mind a sudden tumult of ideas and actions and things that had to be done _right now_ , the excitement of a new project bubbling up inside him. He had to tell Bianca, he had to contact the investors, but more than anything else, he had to talk to Sean, his cinematographer. Grabbing his phone again, he swept through his contacts, stabbing at the screen and then twitching impatiently as it rang. 

_“Bobbit.”_

“Sean? It’s Steve. I just wanted to check- what are you doing for three months or so from June to September this year?”

The deep London accented voice on the other end of the phone sounded a little confused. _“Ehhmm – nothing as yet?”_

Steve grinned, wide and toothy. “Excellent. Well that’s changed as of now.”

And with that Steve was off. This was going to be _**fun.**_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Reviews are my joy (or my jam at the Pitch Perfect fans amongst us would say....._


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _With apologies to the real Ms Vikanda for abruptly terminating a relationship with Fassy that seems to be working in RL – they seemed to be very happy at the Golden Globes this year!_

_Set of X-Men Apocalypse – near Toronto - May 2015_

Mike collapsed on the couch with a sigh, sliding down until his head rested against the back; long legs stretched in front of him and regarded the white stone washed jeans that Wardrobe had forced him into with a jaundiced air. 80’s fashion was not flattering. Although admittedly not as bad as the horrendous high waisted 70s trousers he had endured for _X-Men: Days of Futures Past_. He had really actively disliked those and MacAvoy had mocked him about them something chronic.

But it wasn’t really the horrible clothing choices that Wardrobe delighted in tormenting him with that were affecting his moods. He was just, rather uncharacteristically, somewhat depressed. Not in any big or dramatic way, and he didn’t think that his work had been affected, but it sneaked up on him in waves whenever he wasn’t paying attention or whenever there was a moment’s pause in the relentlessness of filming, and especially late at night when he was lying sleepless in his hotel room. And it wasn’t just since he had started filming _X-Men_ as well. In fact, in retrospect he had realised that it had been creeping up on him even when he was filming the _Light Between the Oceans_ in Australia and New Zealand before Christmas. It was probably one of the reasons he had thrown himself into dating Alicia on set. Not that she wasn’t a lovely girl, which she was, but he had been determined that he was going to try and slow down his revolving cast of temporary girlfriends, as it had become a habit that ultimately left him feeling even more adrift than when he started. But, beautiful as the scenery had been, there had been very few other distractions on set in Stanley. Tasmania was lovely but not exactly the social capital of the universe and his natural restlessness had manifested itself in long motorcycle rides along the deserted coast and equally mammoth drinking sessions with the cast and crew during which it just seemed natural to drift into a casual relationship with his co-star who was a sweet girl and gorgeous to boot. But as all his relationships tended to do, it had gently dissolved once filming had concluded and they had gone their separate ways to their respective new projects. 

That had left him feeling a little melancholy, not so much the actual dissolution of the brief dalliance, which had been perfectly amicable but rather that the end of their relationship hadn’t upset him. He had, in a perverse way, wanted it to hurt more than it did, because then at least he would have felt that it would have meant something, that he had been invested. But it hadn’t and it was just another tick in a box as if the universe was reminding him that he was fundamentally meant to be alone. Originally the next thing on his schedule had been _Music Man_ , with Steve and he’d been looking forward to it immensely, not just because it was a great script that he’d had substantial creative involvement in but because it was filming at Pinewood in London, with only a few weeks on location and he knew all of the crew involved already. While he was, as he had often admitted, almost a professional nomad these days, London still held a special place in his heart next to Kerry. It was where his flat was for one, and it would be great for once to not stay in a hotel or a hired house, but rather in his own place with his own things around him. And it meant that he would be able to catch up with his mates on his days off, or even just indulge in the boringly domestic things that became strangely precious when he seldom had the opportunity to do them – like cooking for himself, or going to Sainsbury’s, or ordering a curry and slobbing on the couch while he watched Formula One. 

He just needed to _stop_ , just for a little bit. Just put his head down and rest. He shook his head at his own self-pity. Not that many years ago he would have been desperate to be this busy and he would have punched his future self in the face at this level of whining. But it was amazing how even success could be exhausting with its own particular set of drawbacks and the relentless pace of change was definitely one of them. 

There was a sharp rap of knuckles on the metal door of his trailer and before he could make any response a hand wrenched the handle open and a sharp blue eyed face currently topped with flowing brunette locks shoved its way into his space, quickly followed by the rest of MacAvoy’s lithe frame. His friend took everything in (the faintly dejected look on Michael’s face, the slump in his body language) in one quick assessing glance and then rolled his eyes expressively and dropped onto the other end of the couch with a thump.

“Right then! What’s up with you today, you miserable Irish git?”

Mike just gazed at him for a second, adjusting to the abrupt intrusion into his territory and then raised an eyebrow. “That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?”

James pursed his lips consideringly and then shook his head. “Not really. I think it’s pretty accurate. You’ve been wandering around set since the early hours as though a fuckin’ rain cloud has decided to attach itself to your head alone.”

Mike frowned. He’d hoped that he hadn’t been that obvious. “Really? It hasn’t affected the work has it?” 

MacAvoy shook his head firmly. “No. Don’t worry. I don’t think most people have even noticed.” The ‘ _but I did_ ’, went unspoken. There was a reason the two of them got on so well and a large part of that was exactly how attuned they had become to each other’s state of mind over the course of filming the last three X-men films and all of the accompanying press junkets and promotion. Just like Mike’s relationship with Steve McQueen it was a relationship that had developed to the extent that they didn’t actually need to talk that much, being able to have an entire conversation in the raise of an eyebrow and the tilt of a head. But the flipside of that was that that James knew him far too well, and was absolutely merciless in pursuing an issue if he saw that his friend was suffering. 

“So what’s going on?”

Mike looked down and away for a moment, trying to avoid that terribly perceptive blue eyed stare. But he knew James just as well as the Scot knew him and that meant he knew exactly how relentless the other man could be when he decided to get to the bottom of something. Even he didn’t ‘fess up, MacAvoy would just harangue him until he did. And really it wasn’t worth the stress. He looked up to meet his friend’s concerned gaze and shrugged.

“Nothing,” he grimaced at the automatic qualifier which it was clear that James would never accept as was immediately demonstrated by the unconvinced snort that the shorter man gave. 

“Yeah, right. And I’m the Pope.” He leaned forward and gave the Irishman his best unimpressed stare. “Out with it, Fassy. Or do I have to bend you over my knee?”

Despite himself Mike sniggered at that mental image. “Thank you for that, James. Yet another image I’m going to have to bleach my brain to get rid of.” 

MacAvoy smirked. “I aim to please. Now, seriously, what’s the matter? It’s not like you to be moping around to the extent that even I pick up on it.”

Mike shook his head. “It’s stupid. Honestly mate, it’s nothing,” He shrugged again. “Just a minor case of the blues.” He smiled self-deprecatingly. “I think I’m just feeling a little homesick. I’ve been on the road a little too long, that’s all. It’s a bit pathetic, I know.”

James pinned him with a shrewd, assessing look. “No, I don’t think it’s just that,” he drawled slowly. “Come on, out with it, Fassbender. I know you, and even if you are a bit knackered you don’t react like this. You’ve been brooding around like you’re channelling Rochester again. I almost expect a blasted heath to materialise any moment.”

Despite himself Mike snorted a laugh at that. MacAvoy had always been great at cutting to the heart of whatever was bothering him. He looked up to meet his friend’s warm gaze, the sharp blue eyes full of humour but genuinely sympathetic. That was the unspoken thing about his relationship with James, the actual care that underpinned it. They covered it up with swearing and drinking, fast cars and stupid stunts and ridiculous humour but at the base of it was a convoluted affection, a deep friendship that had become strong enough to be almost brotherly. And although MacAvoy was the first to kick the other man if he thought he was being a dick, the Scot was also surprisingly protective of those he cared about – and somehow, Fassbender had realised a while ago, he had become one of those people. And although they never talked about it, he was grateful. 

He sighed. “Right, before I say this, I admit that I’m going to sound like I’m whining like a twat.” He sat forward from his leg stretched sprawl, elbows on his knees and scrubbed his hands up and down his face distractedly. “It’s all first world problems, mate.” 

MacAvoy wasn’t fooled by the attempt to deflect and waved a hand in lordly fashion. “Go on, then. I’ll not judge.” He smirked. “Too much, anyway.”

“I’m just…” Mike grimaced, aware of how pathetic he was going to sound. “I’m just tired, I think. I need to take a break after this one wraps. Maybe go home to London for a bit or back to my folks for a week or two.” He looked up. James was still watching him steadily, waiting for him to continue. “You know that I was meant to be doing _Music Man_ with Steve just now?” The other man nodded. Mike shrugged again. “I was really looking forward to that, actually. We were going to be filming at Pinewood and it would have meant I could have stayed at home during the shoot. And it’s Steve, man.”

The yearning was almost palatable in Fassbender’s voice and MacAvoy grimaced a little in sympathy. While he had never had a relationship as close with any of his Directors (although Jamie Lloyd had come close) he understood how much Mike cherished his friendship with Steve McQueen and how deeply he relished their creative partnership. Despite all of the high profile projects Mike had been involved in, the Irishman still maintained that Steve was the one that made him do his best work, made him able to be brave enough to “fail better”, as he put it. And he also knew that McQueen and Fassbender had been collaborating on a script for a year or so now, almost just so as to have the opportunity to work together again, and he could tell that Mike was gutted not to be able to make it happen. 

Mike shook his head. “And now he’s mothballed _Music Man_ until we can both find time to do it, and with my schedule and his I don’t know when that’s going to be and I’m going onto do _Assassin’s Creed_ after this one and I’ll have the press for _Slow West_ , and _Steve Jobs_ and _MacBeth_ …” he trailed off, looking momentarily exhausted and as hag-ridden as James had ever seen him as he dropped his head back into his hands, gaze fixed on the floor and the Scot felt a pang of sympathy even as he pulled himself up from the couch and crossed to drop beside Fassbender.

“You’re right – those are all first world problems. Remember when you would have killed for them?” Fassbender chuckled, but it was muffled and James was familiar enough with repressed male emotion to recognise that Mike was unexpectedly on the edge of tears. Without speaking he reached out and grabbed his friend’s shoulder, and then the nape of his neck, giving the Irishman a brief reassuring shake, like you would a puppy, then left his hand there, comforting. “I think, mate…” he paused trying to choose the right words, “that you’re right. You _are_ tired. You’ve had a hell of a lot going on over the last 18 months or so. All good projects, and everything, and I understood why you had to strike while you thought the iron was hot, but I think you might be spreading yourself a little thin. You need to re-group.” 

Fassbender snorted a laugh at that, still a little wetly and James diplomatically didn’t mention the still slightly glassy eyed sheen in his mate’s grey eyes when the older man looked up at him.

“Yeah, I know. I probably do.”

“You do.” He squeezed his hand around Mike’s nape again, reassuringly and then dropped his hand away, fixing the Irishman with an unwontedly serious look. 

“Soon as we wrap this thing, having a break – that’ll undoubtedly help. But I think you need to ground yourself a bit more to stop this kind of thing happening again.” He quirked a smile. “I know you take the piss out of me sometimes for heading home all the time, but it’s important, mate. You need some sort of balance in the craziness; otherwise you’ll go nuts and burn out. Anne-Marie and the wee man, and our place in Crouch End, that’s my balance. Those are the people and that’s the place that makes all of the madness make sense. I think maybe you need to find that somewhere.”

Mike’s lips twisted as he glanced away. As usual (although he would seldom admit it), MacAvoy was probably right. “Yeah, maybe.” He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. “But that’s easier said than done, you know.”

His friend shrugged. “Perhaps. Or maybe you just need to reset your priorities a bit. Start choosing projects closer to home, or carve out some time for you and Steve and _stick_ with it. Make everything work around it.”

He got a wry look for that one. “And that’s so easy to do in real life.”

MacAvoy looked back at him calmly, completely unperturbed. “It is if you want it to be.” He shook his head. “I know you don’t like to throw your weight around, mate, but the fact is that you’re a big star now. You’re one of the highest profile male actors of our generation. And that means that you have _clout_. You just have to start using it to your advantage. And I know that you trumpet about being the ultimate nomad, but I think that maybe that shit’s starting to run a little thin, don’t you think? There’s nothing wrong in having a home, or wanting to be there.” He smiled, a little self-deprecatingly. “I should know, after all.”

Mike grimaced in acknowledgement. “Fair enough. But you’ve _got_ a home. You have Anne-Marie and Brendan. That’s your family. _That’s_ your home.”

James cocked his head in response. “And?” The unspoken ‘ _your point_?’ was almost audible.

Mike rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. “Well, I. Don’t. I mean I had something with Alicia when we were filming, but it fizzled out afterwards.” He smiled ruefully. “That seems to be kind of my habit.”

James rolled his eyes expressively. “If you’ve only just realised that now I should really award you a prize for sheer obliviousness. It’s what you’ve _always_ done. At least as long as I’ve known you. Remember Zoe back when we were filming _First Class_?”

Mike smiled a little wistfully. “Yeah – that’s a lovely girl, for sure.”

James shook his head in amused despair. “They’re always ‘ _lovely girls_ ’ accordingly to you. But you never stay with any of them.”

Mike looked vaguely uncomfortable. “I just – I move on to the next project, and they move on to their next project, and it never seems _worth_ it, somehow, all the hassle of trying to keep in touch. I get too busy, and so do they.”

His Scots friend sighed. “I get it, I really do. But again, it’s a matter of priorities. You have to make that effort with someone to build something solid. And it’s that solidity that keeps you grounded, which, in my humble opinion only, by the way, is what you need. And I get the temptation to shag around in this industry, I mean, I _really_ get it. There are all these stunning women, and they are throwing themselves at you and it’s so _easy_ …..but you just have to say no. And stick to it. Because the other thing you have? That solidity, that base? That’s _worth_ it.”

There was a seriousness to the Scot’s last pronouncement, an intensity and commitment that Fassbender couldn’t help but admire. “So you’ve never…..” there was an unspoken _strayed/shagged around/cheated_ that James immediately picked up on and shook his head in response.

“No. Never. It’s not worth the risk. I value what I have; I value my family and Anne-Marie’s trust far too much.” He smirked. “Anyway, if I did she would have my balls in a vice.” Then he abruptly sobered. “And then she would take my son and she would leave me. Which I would deserve. And then I’d fall apart.” He spoke flatly, but his tone clearly indicated that he meant exactly what he said and Mike was seized with a strange combination of envy and trepidation at his friend’s situation. What would it be like to trust someone else so much, to be so bound up in them that if they left they would break you into little pieces? He’d never had that, and he didn’t know if he was capable of that kind of emotional investment. And was it worth it?

He nudged an abruptly pensive MacAvoy in the side with an elbow. “And you think that I should _want_ that? Someone able to put my balls in a vice?”

James smirked at him, a light of humour dancing in his eyes. “Oh, aye. Absolutely. It’s completely worth it.” His smile softened. “It really is. But only with the _right_ woman.”

“Oh – and finding the right woman is just so easy, isn’t it? We can’t all luck out, like you.”

MacAvoy’s smile deepened as he thought about his wife. “I did luck out, you know. I really did.” He chuckled to himself. “Do you know that it was me that went after her? She didn’t really want anything to do with me.” He grinned. “Can’t say that I blame her. But I was determined, although it took me ages to win her over. I still sometimes can’t believe that I actually did.”

He smiled the satisfied smile of a man deeply in love and completely content with the situation, his focus momentarily on somewhere far distant from their set near Toronto, before he looked back at his friend. “Maybe that’s what you need – a woman who needs to be persuaded before she falls for your charms. I think maybe you’ve had it too easy, mate. Women dropping at your feet, left, right and centre. If you met a woman that you realised that you would have to work for, maybe you’d be a bit more invested if you realised from the outset that you would have to make that effort and you decided that it would be worth it.”

Mike shrugged. “Maybe,” he conceded and then grinned himself, his good humour abruptly restored. “But I still have to find a woman that’s worth making that kind of effort for, don’t I? Do you know anyone?”

MacAvoy stared at him for a beat, as if he was about to say something, and then laughed as he shook his head. “I wouldn’t dare. Half of the women I know are Anne-Marie’s friends and she has already given me a red card for even daring to suggest that some of them might want to meet you.”

Caught by surprise Mike raised an eyebrow. “Why is that? I thought Anne-Marie liked me. Or at least tolerated me, the few times we’ve met.”

James smirked. “Oh she does. She likes you fine. She thinks you’re very charming actually, and a good laugh. But she also thinks that when it comes to non-familial relationships with women you have the emotional capacity of a 5 year old. I think the exact quote was _‘like the bloody iceberg that sunk the Titanic, seemingly harmless above water and guaranteed to wreck any one underneath.’_ And she’s understandably reluctant to sign her friends up for that kind of pain.”

Mike sat back, mildly offended. “That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?”

James chuckled. “That’s my wife. She calls it like she sees it. And maybe it is a little harsh, but it probably has a large chunk of truth in it. I know you don’t mean to do it, but you’re not exactly the poster boy for committed relationships, mate.”

Mike considered denying the accusation and then laughed, a little ruefully. “Point,” he acknowledged. “But as you say, maybe it’s time I did something about that.”

MacAvoy chuckled in return, even as he glanced at his watch and heaved himself up from the couch. “Maybe it is. But for now, I think it’s time we were due back on set. You coming?”

Mike hauled himself up as well. “Yeah. But I’ll have to stop by makeup first.” He sighed. “When they see what I’ve done with my hair they are going to be _pissed_.”

James sniggered. “Well, think of your apologies as your first steps in the Michael Fassbender recovery program – how to be nice to women without trying to sleep with them….” And then had to abruptly dodge when Fassbender’s fist went flying towards his head. He laughed and careered out of the trailer door, leaving Mike to follow in his wake, shaking his head in mock disgust but feeling a hell of a lot better than he had earlier. Maybe James was right. Maybe it was time to sort out his priorities. Perhaps. He would just have to see how it all worked out. But first he had Hair and Make-up personnel to charm. He smiled inwardly. And to try not to sleep with. 

Michael Fassbender recovery program indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Any reviews received gratefully and with love!_


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _As the author, I am taking the executive licence that this fic is now departing from the RL airport. There will be no Hiddleswift (*really, Tom? Really??*) and in my little purely fictional universe James MacAvoy and Anne-Marie Duff remain happily married....it's fiction people, so I am indulging myself! And for non-UK readers, the reference to "the City" in the chapter below is the habitual shorthand used to refer to the City of London, or the Square Mile as it's known, which references both the physical location of a large percentage of the financial and legal sector professional firms in London, but also a mentality, i.e. "he works in the City."_

_**Counselling office of Amanda Carter – West London – May 2015**_

Amanda tapped her pen against her notepad for a moment as she observed the randomly pacing figure of one of her favourite clients with some amusement. 

“So –how is everything going?”

Kat paused in her rambles at the question, picking up a small bronze replica of Rodin’s _The Thinker_ from the shelf as she did so, turning the curves in her hands as she replied.

“Pretty good actually. I finished principal photography on _Double Blind_ last week, and that was quite intensive, so it’s nice to be home.”

“Any problems with that shoot?”

Kat considered for a moment and then shook her head. “It was an action thriller, and apart from a few close quarter scenes it was all very neutral. No nudity or sex, just a little bit of unspoken sexual tension.”

“And you can do that? It’s comfortable for you?”

Kat turned on one heel to face her therapist and grinned. “Well, I am _an_ actor, so I should hope so!”

Amanda rolled her eyes at her client’s deliberate obtuseness, even as she fixed her with a mock quelling look. “You know what I was referring to….”

Kat smiled at her. “Of course.” She sobered a little, but there was still an edge of laughter lurking in those famous green eyes. “And no, it wasn’t a problem. I rather liked Mark. Mark Ruffalo,” she clarified at Amanda’s questioning look. “He’s a very nice man. Very on the ball but laid back at the same time. And really devoted to his wife and kids, which is always nice to see.” She probably wasn’t aware that her smile had grown a little wistful at that comment but Amanda noticed and felt a pang of sympathy. She had grown very fond of Kat over the years of their professional acquaintance and she was sharply aware of how lonely the younger woman was, even though she had a tight circle of close friends and a wide variety of slightly looser relationships. But there was some part of the Scotswoman that was always seeking, looking for something different, and Amanda had a suspicion that it was her client’s subconscious longing for something to replicate the absolute sense of security that she had last enjoyed when her parents were still alive. And that wasn’t anything Amanda could really help her directly with. All she could do was give Katerina the tools so that she could walk out into the world on equal terms with everyone else and then her client would have to do the rest on her own.

“I see.” The sheer randomness of the conversation struck her and Amanda laughed softly, running an abstracted hand through her hair.

Kat caught the gesture and smiled at her quizzically. “What?”

“It’s just funny, sometimes, the way that to civilians like me the people you occasionally mention are larger than life figures, but to you, they’re essentially work colleagues.” 

Kat cocked her head as she considered that, a slow smile stretching across her face as she moved to drop unceremoniously sideways into ‘her’ chair, long legs thrown casually over the arm rest. “That’s because they are,” she pointed out. “Or at least to me.” Her smile widened. “Why?” She teased slyly. “Is there anyone in particular you have a crush on? Someone you want me to get an autograph from for you? If so, I’m sure that could be arranged….”

Despite her best attempt at maintaining a professional façade a burble of laughter fought its way out of Amanda’s throat, triggering an answering giggle from her patient and for a second they indulged in a moment of mutual hilarity at the ridiculousness of the conversation. After a minute Amanda shook her head admonishingly at herself and fought back to some level of sobriety. 

Across from her, Kat was still snickering quietly, green eyes glittering in amusement, trainer clad feet kicking idly at the side of the chair, that thousand watt smile stretched across those beautiful features and for a second her therapist just basked in how gorgeous her patient (and her friend) was and how proud she was of how far the younger woman had come over the period of their involvement. Yes, Kat still had a journey to travel, but she was so much more relaxed with regard to her relationships with men, and so much more open generally with people she liked than she used to be. She still reverted, almost subconsciously, to her previous, more guarded persona in public and when she was uncomfortable or when she met new acquaintances (especially men), but even there the degree of her social isolation had thinned, and she had begun to allow herself to relax a little once she was sure that there was no ill intent. There were certainly some things that Amanda didn’t ever think would ever go away, at least not completely, such as the younger woman’s reticence in relation to casual intimacy from relative strangers, or her tendency to need to always be aware of an exit in any room she was in, but these weren’t wholly bad things, just remnants of her past that were slowly softening into personal idiosyncrasies, rather than being worryingly dominant in a way that genuinely affected her life. She really had made remarkable progress and to Amanda the most frustrating thing about the entire process had been Kat’s refusal to actually take credit for the work that she had done. Well, maybe it was time to be a little pushy in order to eventually be kind.

“Do you know that it’s now been over two years since we started working together?”

Her client looked slightly surprised at the non sequitur, the overt laughter fading from her face, although its residual warmth still lurked in her eyes. “Yes, I was aware. It was our anniversary in January, wasn’t it?”

Amanda nodded, tapping her pen gently against her notepad as she did so. “Yes, it was. And I just wanted to take this opportunity to let you know how _proud_ I am of you, and of all of the progress you’ve made over the last few years.” Across the room Kat automatically put up a protesting hand, trying to deflect the praise, but Amanda forged on regardless. “No. Seriously, Kat, listen to me.” She leaned forward in her chair, determinedly making eye contact. “You have made a _huge_ amount of progress in a comparatively short space of time, and that is all down to you.” She raised a hand to forestall her client’s imminent interjection and shook her head. “No. It _is_ I might have provided the tools, but you did the work, and I don’t think you are aware exactly how much you have opened up since we started. And I am so honoured that you permitted me to help you with your progress, because it’s been amazingly fulfilling for me, to help you like this, to see you start to connect with your body and your emotions in the way that you have.”

Kat had been determinedly avoiding eye contact for the majority of this speech, the tell-tale flag of rose on her high cheekbones a testament to her embarrassment at the praise. But as Amanda continued she shifted in her chair to face her, her increasing alarm at what sounded almost like a farewell speech overcoming her native awkwardness at being praised.

“Amanda.”

The older woman blinked at the urgency in her friend’s tone and stopped her speech. “What?”

Kat frowned anxiously. “This isn’t some kind of farewell speech, is it? Some sort of, we’re done, off you go, kind of thing? Because I really don’t want that to be the case. I’m nowhere _near_ ready for that.”

Her therapist stared at her for a beat, nonplussed and then chuckled, the warm lines of her face creasing with her amusement. “No! Of course not!” She leaned forward reassuringly, still chuckling. “I was just….I just wanted you to realise how far you’ve come, not to tell you that I’m dumping you by the wayside!”

Kat leaned back in her chair with a deep exhale of relief. “Thank god for that. I was worried there for a moment.”

Amanda shook her head, still amused. “No. Don’t worry; you’re still going to be my client for a while yet, at least if you still want to be!” She acknowledged Kat’s vehement nod with a smile before continuing. 

“I just want you to take track of where you were and how far you have come, because you might not have been conscious of the _level_ of your transformation over the last few years. For example, one of the things you told me when you started was that you often felt fundamentally alienated from our own body. Do you still feel like that now?” 

Kat shook her head almost immediately. “Hardly ever. There are the occasional moments….” She hesitated, trying to articulate what she was trying to say and grimaced. “It’s usually if I’m somewhere I don’t want to be, and there are too many people, or everyone is in my face…” She rolled her eyes expressively. “Like premieres for example, or award shows. Or those industry parties that Tor insists that I go to every so often.” She shuddered. “I _really_ don’t like them. Everyone stares at you like you’re a piece of meat, like they want to dissect you. And the paparazzi are horrible. And people are shouting for you to look at them or trying to grab at you if you go too near the rope line.” She shivered in recollection. “And then at the parties, everyone is rat-arsed, and while I don’t really mind that, I _am_ Scottish, after all, and if I freaked out at being around drunk people I wouldn’t have been able to go out socially whenever I go home…it’s just that,” she grimaced. “When people get drunk they get handsy…and a lot of the men get grabby..” She shuddered again before continuing. “And I really, really hate that.”

“Especially since you are always sober.” Amanda pointed out.

“Yes. Exactly.”

“So perhaps the ability to disassociate yourself a little in those circumstances is useful, rather than something you need to work on?”

Kat smiled, a little wryly. “Perhaps,” she conceded. “Sometimes being a little detached can be surprisingly helpful.”

Amanda smiled her understanding. “But apart from that, have you felt that you are more….’at home’ with your body than you used to be? You certainly seem that way from my observations, but of course, you are the only one who can really tell.”

Kat nodded before Amanda had even finished speaking. “No, I do. It’s hard to explain but…” she trailed off again as she considered, eyes fixed on something far from the confines of the small cozy, booked lined room in the period office building in North London. 

“When what happened to me, happened,” she hesitated and then continued slowly and in a tone of almost clinical detachment, as though she was talking about someone else entirely.

Amanda stayed as quiet as possible, determined not to interrupt, for it was the first time that Kat had ever talked to her therapist, even indirectly, about how she felt about what had happened to her all those years ago. 

“For a very long time afterwards, I hated my body. It was my body that _he’d_ been interested in and my body that let me down by not being quick enough or strong enough to fight back effectively. And it was my body that hurt so much afterwards. I _hated_ it. I covered it up as much as I could. I didn’t touch it unless I absolutely had to. I never looked at myself at all. In hindsight I probably came very close to some fairly grievous self-harm, but Nick had assigned a battalion of therapists to me to keep me on track and I knew that he would have been so upset if he had found out that I had hurt myself. And my parents would have been devastated…” for a moment she paused, lips pressed tight with a momentary pang of remembered grief before she continued. 

“But I did the next best thing. I ignored my body as much as I could. And I punished it for not being enough when I needed it. Anything physical I could do to make me stronger or faster or tougher in a way that would stop me from ever being in that situation again, I took. Even when I was away at school I insisted that Nick arrange for me to have personal training in advanced self-defence and krav maga. I ran 5-10 miles every morning before everyone was up. I used to go out into the rain when there were too many people around and do the school assault course in the dark, just to feel the pain when I pushed too hard.” Her mouth cracked in a small smile that had little humour in it. “And the irony of course, was that it was only when I was pushing myself physically that I actually felt like I was properly connected to my body. All the other times I felt like ‘me’ was in a bubble floating somewhere above it, hardly tethered to the lump of flesh that other people saw. But it was only when I was running, or dancing, or fighting, or riding, anything like that, that I felt grounded in myself…..” she trailed off and shook her head in faintly bemused recollection.

“How long did that last?” Amanda’s query was so soft as to be almost inaudible but Kat glanced at her anyway, that small hurt smile still hovering around her lips. She shrugged. 

“Until I was about 19, I think. It was when I first started becoming seriously involved with drama at Oxford.”

Amanda was honestly curious now. “Was that when you decided you wanted to act? Were you studying drama at Oxford? Or English?”

Kat chuckled softly. “God no. My undergrad was in Economics and Modern Languages. And then I did an MSc in Financial Economics at the Said Business School,” she raised an amused eyebrow at Amanda’s clear astonishment and smiled, an element of mischievousness slipping into her expression. “You didn’t expect that, did you?”

Amanda laughed quietly. “No, I didn’t,” she allowed. “That’s a bit of change! How did that happen?”

Kat shrugged, her amusement at her friend’s surprise pulling her out of her funk a little. “Well, I didn’t really think about what I would do until my parents died.”

“So no dreaming of being a princess, then?” Amanda teased gently. Kat just smiled. 

“Not that I recall, no. But I might have wanted to be an Olympic show jumper or something like that. I was rather pony obsessed as a wee girl.”

Amanda laughed again at that, caught by a sudden vivid mental image of a scruffy determined small child with her mass of black hair tied back in messy pigtails straggling out of a hardhat and perched on top of a rotund Shetland pony. 

“I can imagine. You’ll have to show me a photo.” Kat’s mobile mouth quirked in amused acknowledgment.

“Perhaps one day,” she allowed. “But anyway, when I thought about what I should do, I decided, very logically, that I should go into the City.”

Amanda raised a bemused eyebrow. “ _Really?_ ” She looked at Kat sceptically. “It doesn’t seem to really _fit_.”

Caught by surprise Kat laughed out loud. “Hah! You would have some work to convince me of that at one point!” She chuckled again. “I was very determined.” At Amanda’s querying look she explained. 

“It was a very sensible decision. You know about my background.” It was a statement, rather than a question, as the therapist was one of the few who to whom Kat had briefly disclosed her past, knowing that her confidentiality was assured by the strict regulations Amanda operated within as part of her professional responsibilities. 

“Well, nowadays, people who have family estates tend to go into agriculture or the City. Even the men, rather than the armed services like they used to. It’s all about upkeep, you see. Estates are bloody expensive things to keep afloat. All those old houses have horrendous maintenance bills and if you are lucky they just about generate enough income to pay for their keep. So if you want to hold onto the family estate going into the City is actually pretty sensible.” She shrugged again. “My Dad did something similar for a few years after he came out of the army before my grandfather died. And,” she smiled again, a little impishly. “I was _good_ at it.” 

Amanda knew that her scepticism must have been showing as the chuckle that erupted again from her patient was wry. “Honestly! I _was_. I’ve always been good at maths. I probably imbued it with my mum’s milk or some such. Mum lectured in astrophysics at Glasgow Uni,” she clarified at Amanda’s querying look. “And Dad got a First in PP and E, that’s Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford before he went into the army, and then took a Masters in Economics when he came out. Mum was at Oxford doing her PhD. That’s how they met. So maths was something I grew up doing from when I was tiny. And it was always fun.”

Amanda’s face screwed up into a complicated expression of fascination and disgust. She shuddered. “Maths – fun? God forbid. I always hated maths at school.” Kat chuckled softly again.

“Well, I loved it. But I really liked English too, although I never thought that I was going to do anything else with it other than work in an investment bank.”

“So what changed?”

Her client smiled, a little wryly, again. “It was Mr Adams, my English teacher, my second year at Fettes. We were studying _Midsummer’s Night’s Dream_ , and we had to read out the parts. For some reason he suggested that I read Titania, and when I did he must have heard something he liked, because the next thing I knew he had persuaded me to join one of the intra-house drama productions that the school ran. Maybe he thought it would be therapeutic.”

“And that was it?”

“Hardly. But there something about it, enough to keep me coming back. I realised that it meant that I could be _someone else_. For just those few hours when we were rehearsing or performing, I didn’t have to be Kat, with all of Kat’s baggage and all of her issues. I could be someone else instead. Someone who wasn’t afraid of how angry they were all the time, someone who wasn’t half the time disgusted by her body and by herself. Someone who was _whole_.” 

There was bleakness in her voice now and Amanda’s heart ached in sympathy for that screwed up adolescent, all those years ago. 

“And you were good at it?” She gently interjected, trying to lighten the moment. 

Kat shrugged again. “Maybe a little. Enough that the teachers encouraged me to keep going, as did Nick when he saw me perform. But acting was never something I considered doing professionally. It wasn’t _sensible_. It wasn’t a _real_ job. And I didn’t think my parents would have approved, so I was still determined to go into investment banking, or perhaps private equity.”

Amanda smiled. “Well, clearly _something_ happened to change that.” Kat rolled her eyes at that but nodded her agreement.

“Not for a while though. I was still pretty focused on finance all the way through Uni, although I was taking the acting more and more seriously by then. But it was all connected, you see. My courses were pretty hard core, and Oxford’s pretty hard core anyway so I needed a stress relief valve, and acting was mine. But it was different from school. None of the people involved knew what had happened to me, or anything about my background, which was a massive relief in many ways, but it also meant that nobody was willing to give me a break if I was strangely awkward about some things, or had days when I didn’t want to even look at myself. And so I realised that if I wanted to get any parts I had to be prepared to get over some of my issues, and start to allow people to look at me when I wasn’t on stage, which I absolutely hated by the way.”

“Which is when you started looking at yourself in the mirror again,” Amanda concluded.

Kat nodded choppily. “Yes. It took me a long time, and even then all I ever checked was whether I was neat and tidy. But I also realised that if I wanted to improve my acting I couldn’t pretend that my body didn’t exist anymore, either. Because you can’t really act unless you use all of yourself when you do.”

“But that still doesn’t explain why you ended up in the profession, rather than as an investment banker.”

Kat chuckled. “I was, you know.”

“What?”

“An investment banker. For a whole year.” She made a face of amused disgust. “God, I _hated_ it. It was _horrendous_.”

Amanda burst out laughing, shaking her head in pure amusement. “Of _course_ you did. I’m surprised you even lasted the year.”

Kat raised an amused but remonstrative eyebrow at her therapist. “It wasn’t that I was _bad_ at it. In fact I was pretty good. I took a job at Goldman Sachs on their graduate program once I finished my Masters and that side went pretty swimmingly. But it was just so _depressing_. Mind numbingly so. And the people that I was working with were wankers of the highest order.”

“That does not in any way surprise me,” Amanda commentated, still amused.

“Well,” Kat allowed. “I was still determined to do it, even if it was nothing like I thought it might be when I was at school or at Uni. But at Oxford I had been part of setting up an experimental film and theatre production company, and once we all graduated and moved to London I somehow still ended up staying involved.” She laughed quietly, shaking her head in amused recollection. “I used to work until stupid o’clock in the morning at GS and then go straight to the little pigeon hole of an office we had and work on our scripts for a few hours before I crashed. I often slept on the couch in the production office rather than go home.”

“So how did it all come to a head?”

“It was just one of those things. We were about to start shooting on our first film, and I was helping out by script editing. And then our lead actress came down with chicken pox of all things. So obviously she couldn’t do the film, and we had already hired the gear and booked the locations. So Johnny, that was our director, sort of demanded that I step in. He knew that I knew the script backwards and he’d directed me before when I was at Uni and we were both students, so I did.” She shrugged. “I took some holiday and off we went.”

Amanda smiled slowly. “And that was the moment?”

Kat inclined her head. “Pretty much. It was such a relief, acting again. I felt like I’d spent the entire previous year with my stomach tied in knots and then suddenly,” she mimed an explosion with her hands, “poof! Instant relaxation.” She shook her head as she remembered.

“But I was still stubborn. I still thought I owed to my Mum and Dad to stick with the _proper_ job. It was only when Nick verbally beat some sense into me that I realised that he was right, that my Mum and Dad would have wanted me to be happy before anything else. So I auditioned for Central, and got in, although I stayed on at GS until about a week before I started at Central.” She grinned suddenly. “That was a culture shock I can tell you! Going from working in investment banking to drama school in one fell swoop was pretty extreme.” 

Amanda inclined her head in acknowledgement, her eyes dancing as she absorbed the whole story. “And the rest is history.”

“Essentially, yes.”

“So, getting back to my original question – do you feel more “grounded” now?”

Her client nodded. “Hugely so. It’s such a difference that,” she waved a hand in emphasis. “It’s difficult to actually explain.”

Carter smiled in satisfaction. “Well, you don’t have to explain it. You just have to _feel_ it, yourself. That’s all that matters.” She sat up in her chair, abruptly brisk. 

“So now that we have established that you have reached your first set of goals, the next thing we need to do is to ensure that you continue to progress.” She smiled, a little wickedly. “Which of course may mean pushing you slightly out of your comfort zone!” Her smile widened at the almost theatrical look of dread her client gave her at that pronouncement.

“Nothing too scary, I promise! But as we discussed, and as you have discovered through the practical exercises that I suggested you do, part of being comfortable with your body is knowing both it, and the pleasure it can bring you.” She reached down beside her chair and picked up a small shoebox sized cardboard box, biting her lip in amusement as the look of exaggerated dread on her client’s face deepened. 

“While I am _quite_ sure that you are aware of your body’s abilities when it comes to the majority of physical skills that you have and the satisfaction that those bring you, I would suggest that you have perhaps neglected the other ways in which your body can bring you pleasure. And I think that in order to start to feel more comfortable with your own sensuality that’s the next area we need to work on.” She stood to pass the box over to Kat who received it gingerly, holding it in her lap as though it held live explosives. “Don’t open that now, but I want you take it home with you, and once you are somewhere private I want you to open it and use the contents to work through a number of the suggestions on the list you will find inside. “ 

It was pretty obvious to her client as to what those “contents” and the “suggestions” might relate to and despite her best attempts at pretending that she was nonchalant Kat found a tell-tale blush flagging across her cheeks. Thankfully Amanda tactfully ignored it. 

“I don’t expect a blow by blow account of how you get on, but I will expect some general feedback, so no weaselling out of this one!”

She made a note on her pad before proceeding. “And I also want you to do something else for me.” 

“What is it?” Kat enquired, smiling, amused despite herself at her therapist’s brazen practicality. “Haven’t you thrown in enough surprises for one session?”

Amanda smiled, the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes crinkling attractively. “Don’t worry. This exercise will be far less stressful for you than the other!” She tapped her pen against the pad balanced on her lap. “I am of the firm belief that sensuality and being aware of your own sexuality as a woman is like any other muscle, if you don’t use it, it tends to weaken. Or in your case, it understandably never really developed at all.” She cocked her head to one side as she studied her client. “We both know that you appreciate beauty in art and sculpture and in the natural world, so what I want you to do is start appreciating it in humans as well. So that’s the exercise, in everyone you meet in the next few weeks, until our next session, I want you to find one thing about them that you find beautiful.” She held up a finger. “Just one. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be something that relates to how they look. It could be their voice, their intelligence, and their sense of humour or their skill at their job or their personal passion. Just something. And _everyone_ you meet. Men, women, children. Older people, teenagers. Just one thing that sticks out and that you find attractive.”

Kat cocked her head to one side, considering and then shrugged. “Alright. I can do that. Do you want me to keep a record?”

Amanda shook her head. “No records. But I will want to hear your impressions at your next session, and maybe a few examples of people who you particularly noticed.”

“Fine. But why?”

Her therapist smiled. “Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but if the beholder isn’t looking for it, your eye can often just pass over it. And what an individual considers to be beautiful is often closely related to what they find attractive, and that is often closely related to what they are sexually attracted to. So what we are doing is training your eye to look at people less abstractly and objectively, and more subjectively, to find in them the beauty that you already find in inanimate objects and animals. Hopefully then, by the time you reach the stage when you start to find yourself responding to men it won’t be such a shock to suddenly find them switching from neutral to attractive in your head. It’s all about progression, Kat. Baby steps, bit by bit.”

Her client smiled at her in acknowledgement of their shared mantra. Baby steps indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Please review???? Pretty please??_

**Author's Note:**

> _Please review!_


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